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TPrmt.bT T.R.EoUand 



THE 



POETICAL WORKS 



THOMAS HOOD 



WITH SOME 



ACCOUNT OF THE AUTHOR. 



IN FOUR VOLUMES, 




BOSTON: 
LITTLE, BROWN AND COMPANY. 

SHEPAKD, CLARK A?fD CO. 

CIXCIXNATi: MOORE, WII.STACH, KEYS AND CO. 

M.DCCC.LVI. 






Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1856, 
by Little, Brown and Company, in tlie Clerk's Office of 
the District Court of Massachusetts. 



STKRKOTYI'KD I5Y STONK AND SJIAKT. 



CONTENTS. 



VOL. I. 

Page 

Notice of the Author vii 

The Plea of the Midsummer Fairies 5 

Hero and Leander 57 

Lycus, the Centaur 97 

The Two Peacocks of Bedfont 120 

The Two Swans 130 

The Dream of Eugene Aram 143 

The EhTi Tree .152 

The Haunted House 172 

The Bridge of Sighs 188 

^he Song of the Shirt 193 

The Lady's Dream 197 

The Workhouse Clock 202 

The Lay of the Labourer 206 

The Lee-Shore 210 

The Death-Bed 212 

Lines on seeing my Wife and Two Children sleeping in 

the same Chamber 213 

To My Daughter on her Birthday 214 

To a Child embracing his Mother 216 

Stanzas 218 

To a False Friend 219 

The Poet's Portion 220 

Song 222 

Time, Hope, and Memory 224 



CONTENTS. 



Flowers , ^ 

^" 229 

^° 230 

To 232 

To . Composed at Eotterdam 234 

Serenade 237 

Verses in an Album 238 

Ballad ^gg 

Ballad \ ^\['.'.'.'.'.'.'.'.' [ 240 

Ballad \-y 242 

Ballad 244 

The Eomance of ColOj2;ne 246 

249 



The Key ; A Moorish Romance 

Fair Ines '.."....'. 256 

The Departure of Summer 259 

Ode : Autumn 265 

Autumn _ 268 

Autumn 269 

Song : for Music 270 

Song 271 

Hymn to the Sun 272 

To a Cold Beauty "..."...'. 274 

^'^th .'.'.'/^'.'.['.'.'.'.'.'. 276 

The Sea of Death 277 

I Remember, I Remember .'.'.'.'.".".' 279 

The Water Lady 281 

The Exile ^go 

To an Absentee 285 

Ode to the Moon 286 

The Forsaken 290 

Ode to Melancholy ' 291 

On a Native Singer one 

Guido and Marina '290 

Answer to a Lady on™ 



CONTEXTS. V 

son:sets. 

Page 

To the Ocean 303 

Lear 304 

Sonnet to a Sonnet 305 

False Poets and True 306 

To 307 

For the 14th of February 308 

To a Sleeping Child 209 

To a Sleeping Child 310 

" The world is with me and its many cares." 321 

Written in -a Volume of Shakspeare 312 

To Fancy 313 

To an Enthusiast 314 

"It is not death, that sometime in a sigh." 315 

" By every sweet tradition of true hearts." 316 

On receiving a Gift 317 

Silence 318 

" The curse of Adam, the old curse of all." 319 

" Love, dearest lady, such as I would speak." 320 



NOTICE OF THE AUTHOR 

Thomas Hood was born in the Poultry, Lon- 
don, in 1798. His father was a native of Scotland, 
and for many years acting partner in the firm of 
Vernor, Hood and Sharp, extensive booksellers 
and publishers. Thomas Hood was noted as a 
child for great vivacity of spirits, and, at a very 
early age, gave tokens of the genius for which he 
was afterwards distinguished. He was continually 
making shrewd and pointed remarks upon topics 
of which he was presumed to know nothing. This 
information we have derived from the Third Vo- 
lume of the Book of Gems. For our further 
knowledge of the first half of the poet's life, we 
are entirely dependent upon the account which 
Hood has given of himself in his Literary Re- 
miniscences, and we cannot do better than to ex- 
tract the substance of those agreeable papers in 
the author's own words. 

*' There is something vastly flattering in the 
idea of appropriating the half of a quarter of a 
century, mixing it up with your personal expe- 
rience, and then serving it out as your own Life 
and Times. On casting a retrospective glance, 



Viil NOTICE OF THE AUTHOR. 

however, across Memory's waste, it appeared so 
literally a waste, that vanity herself shrank from 
the inclosure act, as an unpromising speculation. 
Had I foreseen indeed, some five-and-thirty years 
ago, that such a demand would be made upon me, 
I might have laid myself out on purpose, as Dr. 
Watts recommends, so as ' to give of every day 
some good account at last.' I would have lived 
like a Frenchman, for effect, and made my life a 
long dress rehearsal of the future biography. I 
would have cultivated incidents ^pour servir' laid 
traps for adventures, and illustrated my memory 
like Rogers's, by a brilliant series of Tableaux. 
The earlier of my Seven Stages should have been 
more Wonder Phenomenon Comet and Balloon- 
like, and have been timed to a more Quicksilver 
pace than they have travelled ; in short, my Life, 
according to the tradesman's promise, should have 
been ' fully equal to bespoke.' But, alas ! in the 
absence of such a Scottish second-sight, my whole 
course of existence up to the present moment 
would hardly furnish materials for one of those 
<bald biographies' that content the old gentle- 
manly pages of Sylvanus Urban. Lamb, on 
being apphed to for a Memoir of himself, made 
answer that it would go into an epigram ; and I 
really believe that I could compress my own into 
that baker's dozen of lines called a sonnet. Mont- 
gomery, indeed, has forestalled the greater part 
of it, in his striking poem on the ' Common Lot,' 



NOTICE OF THE AUTHOR. ix 

but in prose, nobody could ever make any thing 
of it, except Mr. George Robins. The lives of 
literary men are proverbially barren of interest, 
and mine, instead of forming an exception- to the 
general rule, would bear the application of the 
following words of Sir Walter Scott, much better 
than the career of their illustrious author : ' There 
is no man known at all in literature, who may not 
have more to tell of his private life than I have. 
I have surmounted no difficulties either of birth 
or education, nor have I been favoured by any 
particular advantages, and my life has been as 
void of incidents of importance as that of the 
weary knife-grinder — " Story ! bless you, I have 
none to tell, sir." ' 

" Thus my birth was neither so humble that, 
like John Jones, I have been obliged amongst my 
lays to lay the cloth, and to court the cook and 
the muses at the same time ; nor yet so lofty, that, 
w^ith a certain lady of title, I could not write with- 
out letting myself down. Then, for education, 
though on the one hand I have not taken my 
degree, with Blucher ; yet, on the other, I have 
not been rusticated, at the Open Air School, like 
the Poet of Helpstone.* As for incidents of im- 
portance, I remember none, except being drawn 
for a soldier, which was a hoax, and having the 
opportunity of giving a casting vote on a great 

* Clare. 



X NOTICE OF THE AUTHOR. 

parochial question, only I did n't attend. I have 
never been even third in a duel, or crossed in 
love. The stream of time has flowed on with 
me very like that of the New River, which every- 
body knows has so little romance about it, that its 
Head has never troubled us with a Tale. My 
own story then, to possess any interest, must be 
a fib. 

" To conclude, my life, — ' upon my life,' — is 
not worth giving, or taking. The principal just 
suffices for me to live upon; and of course, would 
afford little interest to any one else. Besides, T 
have a bad memory ; and a personal history would 
assuredly be but a middling one, of which I have 
forgotten the beginning and cannot foresee the 
end. I must, therefore, respectfully decline giv- 
ing my life to the world — at least till I have done 
with it — but to soften the refusal, I am willing, 
instead of a written character of myself, to set 
down all that I can recall of other authors, and, 
accordingly, the next nu^nber will contain the 
first instalment of my literary reminiscences. 

" The very earliest of one's literary recollections 
must be the acquisition of the alphabet ; and in 
the knowledge of the first rudiments I was placed 
on a par with the Learned Pig, by two maiden 
ladies that were called Hogsflesh. The circum- 
stance would be scarcely worth mentioning, but 
that being a day-boarder, and taking my dinner 



NOTICE OF THE AUTHOR. XI 

with the family, I became aware of a Baconian 
brother, who was never mentioned except by his 
initial, and was probably the prototype of the 
sensitive ' Mr. H.,' in Lamb's unfortunate farce. 
The school in question was situated in Token- 
house Yard, a convenient distance for a native of 
the Poultry, or Birchin-lane, I forget which, and 
in truth am not particularly anxious to be more 
certainly acquainted with my parish. It was 
a metropolitan one, however, which is recorded 
without the slightest repugnance ; firstly, for that, 
practically, I had no choice in the matter ; and 
secondly, because, theoretically, I would as lief 
have been a native of London as of Stoke Pogis 
or Little Pedlington. If such local prejudices be 
of any worth, the balance ought to be in favor 
of the capital. The Dragon of Bow Church, or 
Gresham's Grasshopper, is as good a terrestrial 
sign to be born under as the dunghill cock on a 
village steeple. Next to being a citizen of the 
world, it must be the best thing to be born a citi- 
zen of the world's greatest city. To a lover of 
his kind, it should be a welcome dispensation that 
cast his nativity amidst the greatest congregation 
of the species ; but a literary man should exult 
rather than otherwise that he first saw the light — 
or perhaps the fog — in the same metropolis as 
Milton, Gray, De Foe, Pope, Byron, Lamb, and 
other town-born authors, whose fame has never- 
theless triumphed over the Bills of Mortality. 



Xll NOTICE OF THE AUTHOR. 

" Having alluded to my first steps on the ladder 
of learning, it may not be amiss in this place to 
correct an assertion of my biographer in the Book 
of Gems, who states, that my education was finished 
at a certain suburban academy.* In this ignorant 
world, where we proverbially live and learn, we 
may indeed leave off school, but our education 
only terminates with life itself. But even in a 
more limited sense, instead of my education being 
finished, my own impression is, that it never so 
much as progressed towards so desirable a con- 
summation at any such establishment, although 
much invaluable time was spent at some of those 
institutions where young gentlemen are literally 
boarded, lodged, and done for. My very first essay 
was at one of those places improperly called semi- 
naries, because they do not half teach any thing ; 
the principals being probably aware that the little 
boys are as often consigned to them to be ' out 
of a mother's way,' as for any thing else. Accord- 
ingly, my memory presents but a very dim image 
of a pedagogical powdered head, amidst a more 
vivid group of females of a composite character, 
part dry-nurse,^ part housemaid, and part govern- 
ess, — with a matronly figure in the background, 
very like Mrs. S., allegorically representing, as 
Milton says, 'our universal mother.' But there 
is no glimpse of Minerva. Of those pleasant 

* Wanostrocht's, Camberwell. 



NOTICE OF THE AUTHOR. XUl 

associations with early school clays, of which 
so much has been said and sung, there is little 
amongst my retrospections, excepting, perhaps, 
some sports which, like charity, might have been 
enjoyed at home, without the drawbacks of sundry 
strokes, neither apoplectic nor paralytic, periodical 
physic, and other unwelcome extras. I am not 
sure whether an invincible repugnance to early 
rising may not be attributable to our precocious 
wintry summonses, from a warm bed into a dim 
damp school-room, to play at filling our heads on 
an empty stomach ; and perhaps I owe my decided 
sedentary habits to the disgust at our monotonous 
walks, or rather processions, or maybe to the 
sufferings of those longer excursions of big and 
little, where a pair of compasses had to pace as 
far and as fast as a pair of tongs. Nevertheless, 
I yet recall, with wonder, the occasional visits of 
grown-up ex-scholars to their old school, all in a 
flutter of gratitude and sensibility at recognizing 
the spot where they had been caned, and horsed, 
and flogged, and fagged, and brimstone-and-trea- 
cled, and black-dosed, and stick-jawed, and kibed, 
and fined, — where they had caught the measles 
and the mumps, and been overtasked, and under- 
taught — and then, by way of climax, sentiment- 
ally offering a presentation snuff-box to their 
revered preceptor, with an inscription, ten to one, 
in dog Latin on the lid ! 

" For my own part, were I to revisit such a 



XIV NOTICE OF THE ArTHOR. 

haunt of my youth, it would give me the greatest 
pleasure, out of mere regard to the rising gene- 
ration, to find Prospect House turned into a Floor- 
cloth Manufactory, and the playground converted 
to a bleach-field. The tahatiere is out of the 
question. In the way of learning, I carried off 
nothing in exchange for my knife and fork and 
spoon, but a prize for Latin without knowing the 
Latin for prize, and a belief which I had after- 
wards to unbelieve again, that a block of marble 
could be cut in two with a razor. 

" From the preparatory school, I was trans- 
planted in due time to what is called, by courtesy, 
a finishing one, where I was immediately set to 
begin every thing again at the beginning. As this 
was but a backward way of coming forward, there 
seemed little chance of my ever becoming what 
Mrs. Malaprop calls 'a progeny of learning;' 
indeed my education was pursued very much after 
the plan laid down by that feminine authority. 
I had nothing to do with Hebrew, or Algebra, 
or Simony, or Fluxions, or Paradoxes, or such 
inflammatory branches ; but I obtained a super- 
cilious knowledge of accounts, with enough of 
geometry to make me acquainted with the conta- 
gious countries. Moreover, I became fluent 
enough in some unknown tongue to protect me 
from the French Mark ; and I was suflficiently at 
home (during the vacations) in the quibbles of 
English grammar, to bore all my parents, rela- 



NOTICE OF THE AUTHOR. XV 

tions, friends, and acquaintance, by a pedantical 
mending of their ' cakeologj.' Such was the sum 
total of my acquirements ; being, probably, quite 
as much as I should have learned at a Charity 
School, with the exception of the parochial accom- 
plishment of hallooing and singing of anthems. 

"The autumn of the year 1811, along with a 
most portentous comet, ' with fear of change per- 
plexing monarchs,' brought, alas ! a melancholy 
revolution in my own position and prospects, by 
the untimely death of my father ; and my elder 
brother shortly following him to the grave, my 
bereaved mother naturally drew the fragments 
of the family more closely around her, so that 
thenceforward her dearest care was to keep her 
' only son, myself, at home.' She did not, how- 
ever, neglect my future interest, or persuade her- 
self by any maternal vanity that a boy of twelve 
.years old could have precociously finished his edu- 
cation ; and, accordingly, the next spring found me 
at what might have been literally called a High 
School, in reference to its distance from the ground. 

" In a house, formerly a suburban seat of the 
unfortunate Earl of Essex — over a grocer's shop 
— up two pair of stairs, there was a very select 
day-school, kept by a decayed Dominie, as he 
would have been called in his native land. In 
his better days, when my brother was his pupil, 
he had been master of one of those Wholesale con- 
cerns in which so many ignorant men have made 



XVI NOTICE OF THE AUTHOK. 

fortunes, by favor of high terms, low ushers, gul- 
lible parents, and victimized little boys. As our 
worthy Dominie, on the contrary, had failed to 
realize even a competence, it may be inferred, 
logically, that he had done better by his pupils 
than by himself; and my own experience cer- 
tainly went to prove that he attended to the 
interests of his scholars, however he might have 
neglected his own. Indeed, he less resembled, 
even in externals, the modern worldly trading 
Schoolmaster than the good, honest, earnest, olden 
Pedagogue — a pedant, perchance, but a learned 
one, with whom teaching was * a labor of love,' 
who had a proper sense of the dignity and import- 
ance of his calHng, and was content to find a main 
portion of his reward in the honorable proficiency 
of his disciples. Small as was our College, its 
Principal maintained his state, and walked gowned 
and covered. His cap was of faded velvet, of 
black, or blue, or purple, or sad green, or, as it 
seemed, of all together, with a nuance of brown. 
His robe, of crimson damask, lined with the 
national tartan. A quaint, carved, high-backed, 
elbowed article, looking like an emigre, from a 
set that had been at home in an aristocratical 
drawing-room, under the ancien regime, was his 
Professional Chair, which, with his desk, was 
appropriately elevated on a dais, some inches 
above the common floor. From this moral and 
material eminence, he cast a vigilant yet kindly 



NOTICE OF THE AUTHOR. XVll 

eye over some dozen of youngsters ; for adver- 
sity, sharpened by habits of authority, Imd not 
soured him, or mingled a single tinge of bile with 
the peculiar red-streak complexion, so common 
to the healthier natives of the North. On one 
solitary occasion, within my memory, was he 
seriously, yet characteristically discomposed, and 
that was by his own daughter, wliom he accused 
of 'forgetting all regard for common decorum;' 
because, forgetting that he was a Dominie as well 
as a Parent, she had heedlessly addressed him in 
public as ' Father,' instead of ' Papa.' The mere 
provoking contrariety of a dunce never stirred his 
spleen, but rather spurred his endeavor, in spite 
of the axiom, to make Nihil fit for any thing. 
He loved teaching for teaching's sake ; his kill- 
horse happened to be his hobby : and doubtless, 
if he had met with a penniless boy on the road 
to learning, he would have given him a lift, like 
the charitable Wagoner to Dick Whittington — 
for love. I recall, therefore, with pleasure, the 
cheerful alacrity with which I used to step up to 
recite my lesson, constantly forewarned — for every 
true schoolmaster has his stock joke — not to 'stand 
in my own light.' It was impossible not to take 
an interest in learning what he seemed so inter- 
ested in teaching ; and in a few months my edu- 
cation progressed infinitely farther than it had' 
done in as many years under the listless super- 
intendence of B. A., and LL. D. and Assistants. 

B 



XVlll NOTICE OF THE AUTHOR. 

I picked up some Latin, was a tolerable English 
Grammarian, and so good a French scholar, that 
I earned a few guineas — my first literary fee — by 
revising a new edition of 'Paul et Virginie' for 
the press. Moreover, as an accountant, I could 
work a summum honum — i. e., a good sum. 

"A friend of the family having taken a fancy to 
me, proposed to initiate me in those profitable 
mercantile mystei'ies which enabled Sir Thomas 
Gresham to gild bis grasshopper ; and like another 
Frank Osbaldestone, I found myself planted on a 
counting-house stool, which nevertheless served 
occasionally for a Pegasus, on three legs, every 
foot, of course, being a dactyl or a spondee. In 
commercial matters, the only lesson imprinted on 
my memory is the rule, that when a ship's crew 
from Archangel come to receive their L S. D., 

you must lock up your P. Y. C. 

* * * * 

" Time was, I sat upon a lofty stool, 
At. lofty desk, and with a clerkly pen 
Began each morning, at the stroke of ten, 
To write in Bell and Co.'s commercial school; 
In Warnford Court, a shady nook and cool, 
The favourite retreat of merchant men ; 
Yet would my quill turn vagrant even then, 
And take stray dips in the Castalian pool. 
Now double entry — now a flowery trope — 
Mingling poetic honey with trade wax — 
Blogg, Brothers — Milton — Grote and Prescott — Pope — 
Bristles — and Hogg — Glyn Mills and Halifax — 
Rogers — and Towgood — Hemp — the Bard of Hope — 
Barilla — Byron — Tallow — Burns — and Flax ! 



NOTICE OF THE AUTHOR. XIX 

" My commercial career was a brief one, and 
deserved only a sonnet in commemoration. The 
fault, however, lay not with the muses. To com- 
mit poetry indeed is a crime ranking next to 
forgery in the counting-house code ; and an Ode 
or a song dated Copthall Court, would be as cer- 
tainly noted and protested as a dishonored bill. 
I have even heard of an unfortunate clerk, who 
lost his situation through being tempted by the 
jingle to subscribe under an account current 

' Excepted all errors 
Made by John Ferrers,' 

his employer emphatically declaring that Poetry 
and Logwood could never coexist in the same 
head. The principal of our firm, on the contrary, 
had a turn for the Belles Lettres, and would have 
winked with both eyes at verses which did not 
intrude into an invoice or confuse their figures 
with those of the Ledger. The true cause of my 
retirement from commercial affairs was more pro- 
saic. My constitution, though far from venerable, 
had begun to show symptoms of decay : my appe- 
tite failed, and its principal creditor, the stomach, 
received only an ounce in the pound. My spirits 
daily became a shade lower — my flesh was held 
less and less firmly — in short, in the language of 
the price current, it was expected that I must 
'submit to a decline.' The Doctors who were 
called in, declared imperatively that a mercantile 



XX NOTICE OF THE AUTHOR. 

life would be the death of me — that by so much 
sitting, I was hatching a whole brood of com- 
plaints, and that no physician w^ould insure me 
as a merchantman from the Port of London to 
the next Spring. The exchange, they said, was 
against me, and as the Exchange itself used to 
ring with ' Life let us Cherish,' there was no 
resisting the advice. I was ordered to abstain 
from Ashes, Bristles, and Petersburg yellow can- 
dle, and to indulge in a more generous diet — to 
take regular country exercise instead of the Rus- 
sia Walk, and to go to bed ear]y even on Foreign 
Post nights. Above all I was recommended 
change of air, and in particular the bracing 
breezes of the North. Accordingly I was soon 
shipped, as per advice, in a Scotch Smack, which 
' smacked through the breeze,' as Dibdin sings, so 
merrily, that on the fourth morning we were in 
sight of the prominent old Steeple of ' Bonny 
Dundee.' 

" Like other shipments, I had been regularly 
addressed to the care of a consignee ; — but the 
latter, not anxious, probably, to take charge of a 
liobbledehoy, yet at the same time unwilling to 
incur the reproach of having a relative in the 
same town and not under the same roof, peremp- 
torily declined the office. Nay, more, she pro- 
nounced against me a capital sentence, so far as 
returning to the place from whence I came, and 
even proceeded to bespeak my passage and reship 



NOTICE OF THE AUTHOR. XXI 

my luggage. Judging from such vigorous mea- 
sures the temper of my customer, instead of re- 
monstrating, I affected resignation, and went with 
a grave face through the farce of a formal leave- 
taking; I even went on board, but it was in 
company with a stout fellow who relanded my 
baggage ; and thus, whilst my transporter ima- 
gined, good easy soul ! that the rejected article 
was sailing round St. Abb's Head, or rolling oiF 
the Bass, he was actually safe and snug in Dun- 
dee, quietly laughing in his sleeve with the Law 
at his back. I have a confused recollectijon of 
meeting, some three or four days afterwards, a 
female cousin on her road to school, who at sight 
of me turned suddenly round, and galloped off 
towards home with the speed of a scared heifer. 

" My first concern was now to look out for 
some comfortable roof, under which 'for a con- 
sideration ' one would be treated as one of the 
family. I entered accordingly into a treaty with 
a respectable widower, who had no sons of his 
own, but in spite of the most undeniable refer- 
ences, and a general accordance as to terms, there 
occurred a mysterious hitch in the. arrangement, 
arising from a whimsical prepossession which only 
came afterwards to my knowledge — namely, that 
an English laddie, instead of supping parritch, 
would inevitably require a rump-steak to his 
breakfast ! My next essay was more successful ; 
and ended in my being regularly installed in a 



XXll NOTICE OF THE AUTHOR. 

boarding-house, kept by a Scotcbwoman, who 
was not so sure of my being a beefeater. She 
was a sort of widow, with a seafaring husband 
' as good as dead,' and in her appearance not 
unlike a personification o^ rouge et noir, with her 
red eyes, her red face, her ye-dow teeth, and her 
black velvet cap. The first day of my term hap- 
pened to be also the first day of the new year, 
and on stepping from my bedroom, I encountered 
our Hostess — like a witch and her familiar spirit 
— with a huge bottle of whiskey in one hand, and 
a glass in the other. It was impossible to decline 
the dram she pressed upon me, and very good it 
proved, and undoubtedly strong, seeing that for 
some time I could only muse its praise in expres- 
sive silence, and indeed, I was only able to speak 
with 'a small still voice' for several minutes 
afterwards. Such was my characteristic intro- 
duction to the Land of Cakes, where I was des- 
tined to spend the greater part of two years, under 
circumstances likely to materially influence the 
coloring and filling up of my future life. 

" To properly estimate the dangers of my posi- 
tion, imagine a boy of fifteen, at the Nore, as it 
were, of life, thus left dependent on his own pilot- 
age for a safe voyage to the Isle of Man ; or con- 
ceive a juvenile Telemachus, without a Mentor, 
brought suddenly into the perilous neighbourhood 
of Calypso and her enchantments. It will hardly 
be expected,^ that from some half-dozen of young 



NOTICE OF THE AUTHOR. XXlll 

bachelors, there came forth any solemn voice 
didactically warning me in the strain of the sage 
Imlac, to the Prince of Abyssinia. In fact, I 
recollect receiving but one solitary serious admo- 
nition, and that was from a she cousin of ten years 
old, that the Spectator I was reading on a Sunday 
morning, ' was not the Bible.' For there was 
still much of this pious rigour extant in Scotland, 
though a gentleman was no longer committed to 
Tolboothia Infelix, for an unseasonable promenade 
during church time. 

" To return to my boarding-house, which, with 
all its chairs, had none appropriated to a Professor 
of Moral Philosophy. In the absence of such a 
monitor, nature, fortunately for myself, had gifted 
me with a taste for reading, which the languor of 
ill-health, inclining me to sedentary habits, helped 
materially to encourage. Whatever books, good, 
bad, or indifferent, happened to come within my 
reach, were perused with the greatest avidity, and 
however indiscriminate the course, the balance of 
the impressions thence derived was decidedly in 
favor of the allegorical lady, so wisely preferred 
by Hercules when he had to make his election 
between Virtue and Vice. Of the material that 
ministered to this appetite, I shall always regret 
that I did not secure, as a literary curiosity — a 
collection of halfpenny Ballads, the property of a 
Grocer's apprentice, and which contained, amongst 



XXIV NOTICE OF Till-: AUTHOR. 

Other matters, a new version of Chevy Chase, 
wherein the victory was transferred to the Scots. 
In the mean time, this bookishness acquired for 
me a sort of reputation for scholarship amongst 
my comrades, and in consequence my pen was 
sometimes called into requisition, in divers and 
sometimes delicate cases. Thus for one party, 
whom the Gods had not made poetical, I com- 
posed a love-letter in verse ; for another, whose 
education had been neglected, I carried on a cor- 
respondence with reference to a tobacco manufac- 
tory in which he was a sleeping-partner ; whilst, 
on a graver occasion, the hand now peacefully 
setting down these reminiscences, was employed 
in penning a most horrible peremptory invitation 
to pistols and twelve paces, till one was nicked. 
* * * * I forget the precise result — but 
certainly there was no duel. 

" To do justice to the climate of ' stout and 
original Scotland,' it promised to act kindly by 
the constitution committed to its care. The air 
evidently agreed with the natives ; and auld Robin 
Grays and John Andersons were plenty as black- 
berries, and Auld Lang Syne himself seemed to 
walk bonneted amongst these patriarchal figures 
in the likeness of an old man covered with a 
mantle. The effect on myself was rather curious 
— for I seemed to have come amongst a genera- 
tion that scarcely belonged to my era; mature 
spinsters, waning bachelors, very motherly ma- 



NOTICE OF THE ALTTHOR. XXV 

trons, and experienced fathers, that I should have 
set down as uncles and aunts, called themselves 
my cousins ; reverend personages, apparently 
grandfathers and grandmothers, were simply great 
uncles and aunts : and finally I enjoyed an inter- 
view with a relative oftener heard of traditionally, 
than encountered in the body — a great-great- 
grandmother — still a tall woman and a tolera- 
ble pedestrian, going indeed down the hill, but 
with the wheel w^ell locked. It was like coming 
amongst the Struldbrugs ; and truly, for any 
knowledge to the contrary, many of these Old 
Mortalities are still living, enjoying their sneesh- 
ing, their toddy, their cracks, and particular remi- 
niscences. The very phrase of being ' Scotch'd, 
but not killed,' seems to refer to this Caledonian 
tenacity of life, of which the well-known Walking 
Stewart was an example : he was an annuitant in 
the County-office, and as the actuaries w-ould say, 
died very hard. It must be difficult for the tea- 
totallers to reconcile this longevity wdth the im- 
puted enormous consumption of ardent spirits 
beyond the Tweed. 

"All these favourable signs I duly noted ; and 
prophetically refrained from delivering the letter 

of introduction to Doctor C , w^hich was to 

place me under his medical care. As the sick 
man said when he went into the gin-shop instead 
of the hospital, ' I trusted to natur.' Whenever 



XXVI NOTICE OF THE AUTHOR. 

the weather permitted, therefore, which was gene- 
rally when there were no new books to the fore, 
I haunted the banks and braes, or paid flying 
visits to the burns, with a rod intended to punish 
that rising generation amongst fishes called trout. 
But I whipped in vain. Trout there were in 
plenty, but like obstinate double teeth, with -a 
bad operator, they would neither be pulled out 
nor come out of themselves. Still the sport, if 
so it might be called, had its own attractions, as, 
the catching excepted, the whole of the Waltonish 
enjoyments were at my command, the contem- 
plative quiet, the sweet wholesome country aii", 
and the picturesque scenery — not to forget the 
relishing the homely repast at the shealing or the 
mill ; sometimes I went alone, but often we were 
a company, and then we had for our attendant a 
journeyman tobacco-spinner, an original, and lite- 
rary withal, for he had a reel in his head, whence 
ever and anon he unwound a line of Allan Ram- 
say, or Beattie, or Burns. Methinks I still listen, 
trudging homeward in the gloaming, to the reci- 
tation of that appropriate stanza, beginning — 

'At the close of the day when the hamlet was still,' 

delivered with a gusto, perhaps only to be felt by 
a day-labouring mechanic, who had ' nothing but 
his evenings to himself.' 

" To these open-air pursuits, sailing was after- 



NOTICE OF THE AUTHOR. XXVll 

wards added, bringing me acquainted with the 
boatmen and fishermen of The Craig, a hardy 
race, rough and ready-witted, from whom per- 
chance was first derived my partiality for all 
marine bipeds and sea-craft, from Flag Admirals 
down to Jack Junk, the proud first-rate to the 
liumble boatie that 'wins the bairns' bread.' The 
Tay at Dundee is a broad noble I'iver, with a 
raging tide, which, when it differs with a contrary 
wind, will get up 'jars' (Anglice waves) quite 
equal to those of a family manufacture. It was 
at least a good preparatory school for learning 
the rudiments of boat craft ; whereof I acquired 
enough to be able at need to take the helm with- 
out either going too near the wind or too distant 
from the port. Not without some boyish pride 
I occasionally found myself intrusted with the 
guidance of the Coach-Boat, — so called from its 
carrying the passengers by the Edinburgh Mail — 
particularly in a calm, when the utmost exertions 
of the crew, four old man-of-war's-men, w^ere 
required at the oars. It not unfrequently hap- 
pened, however, that 'the laddie' was uncere- 
moniously ousted by the unanimous vote, and 
sometimes by the united strength, of the ladies, 
who invariably pitched upon the oldest old gentle- 
man in the vessel to 

'■Steer her up and haud her gaun.' 
The consequence being the landing with all the 



XXVlll NOTICE OF THE AUTHOR. 

baggage, some mile above or below the town — 
and a too late conviction, that the Elder Brethren 
of our Trinity House were not the best Pilots. 



" My first acquaintance with the press — a me- 
morable event in an author's experience — took 
place in Scotland. Amongst the temporary so- 
journers at our boarding-house, there came a 
legal antiquarian who had been sent for from 
Edinburgh, expressly to make some unprofitable 
researches amongst the mustiest of the civic 
records. It was my humour to think, that in Po- 
litical as well as Domestic Economy, it must be 
better to sweep the Present than to dust the Past ; 
and certain new brooms were recommended to 
the Town Council in a quizzing letter, which the 
then editor of the Dundee Advertiser or Chronicle 
thought fit to favour with a prominent place in his 
columns. ' 'Tis pleasant sure,' sings Lord Byron, 
' to see one's self in print,' and according to the 
popular notion I ought to have been quite up in 
my stirrups, if not standing on the saddle, at thus 
seeing myself, for the first strange time, set up in 
type. Memory recalls, however, but a very mode- 
rate share of exaltation, which was totally eclipsed, 
moreover, by the exuberant transports of an acces- 
sory before the fact, whom, methinks, I still see 
in my mind's eye, rushing out of the printing- 
ofiice with the wet sheet steaming in his hand, 



1 



NOTICE OF THE AUTHOR. XXIX 

and fluttering all along the High Street, to an- 
nounce breathlessly that ' we were in.' But G. 
was an indifferent scholar, even in English, and 
therefore thought the more highly of this literary 
feat. 

"The reception of my letter in the Dundee 
Newspaper encouraged me to forward a contribu- 
tion to the Dundee Magazine, the Editor of which 
was kind enough, as Winifred Jenkins says, to 
' wrap my bit of nonsense under his Honors 
Kiver,' without charging any thing for its inser- 
tion. Here was success sufficient to turn a young 
author at once into ' a scribbling miller,' and 
make him sell himself, body and soul, after the 
German fashion, to that minor Mephistophiles, 
the Printer's Devil! Nevertheless, it was not 
till years afterwards, and the lapse of a term 
equal to an ordinary apprenticeship, that the Imp 
in question became really my Familiar. In the 
mean time, I continued to compose occasionally, 
and, like the literary performances of Mr. Weller 
senior, my lucubrations were generally committed 
to paper, not in what is commonly called written 
hand, but an imitation of print. Such a course 
hints suspiciously of type and ^ antitype, and a 
longing eye to the Row, whereas, it was adopted 
simply to make the reading more easy, and thus 
enable me the more readily to form a judgment 
of th-e effisct of my little effiDrts. It is more diffi- 
cult than may be supposed to decide on the value 



XXX NOTICE OF THP: AUTHOR. 

of a work in MS., and especially when the hand- 
writing presents only a swell mob of bad charac- 
ters, that must be severally examined and re- 
examined to arrive at the merits or demerits of 
the case. Print settles it, as Coleridge used . to 
say : and to be candid, I have more than once 
reversed, or greatly modified a previous verdict, 
on seeing a rough proof from the press. 

"My mental constitution, however weak my 
physical one, was proof against that type-us fever 
which parches most scribblers till they are set up, 
done up, and maybe, cut up, in print and boards. 
Perhaps I had read, and trembled at the melan- 
choly annals of those- unfortunates, who, rashly 
undertaking to write for bread, had poisoned 
themselves, like Chatterton, for want of it, or 
choked themselves, like Otway, on obtaining it. 
Possibly, having learned to think humbly of my- 
self — there is nothing like early sickness and sor- 
row for 'taking the conceit' out of one — my 
vanity did not presume to think, with certain 
juvenile Tracticians, that I 'had a call' to hold 
forth in print for the edification of mankind. Per- 
chance, the verydeep reverence my reading had 
led me to entertain for our Bards and Sages, de- 
terred me from thrusting myself into the fellow- 
ship of beings that seemed only a little lower 
than the angels. However, in spite of that very 
common excuse for publication, ' the advice of a 



NOTICE OF THE AUTHOK. XXXI 

friend,' who seriously recommended the submit- 
ting of my MSS. to a literary authority, with a 
view to his imprimatur, my slight acquaintance 
with the press was pushed no farther." 

After a residence of two years at Dundee, Hood 
returned to London, and engaged himself to his 
uncle, Mr. Robert Sands, to learn the art of 
engraving. He was afterwards with one of the 
Le Keux, for the same purpose. 

" I had selected a branch of the Fine Arts for 
ray serious pursuit. Prudence, the daughter of 
Wisdom, whispering, perhaps, that the engraver, 
Pye, had a better chance of beefsteak inside, 
than Pye the Laureate ; not that the verse-spin- 
ning was quite given up. Though working in 
aqua fortis, I still played with Castaly, now 
writing — all monkeys are imitatois, and all young 
authors are monkeys — now writing a Bandit, to 
match the Corsair, and anon, hatching a Lalla 
Crow, by way of companion to Lalla Rookh. More- 
over, about this time, I became a member of a pri- 
vate select Literary Society that ' waited on Ladies 

and Gentlemen at their own houses.' 

As regards my own share in the Essays and 
Arguments, it misgives me, that they no more 
satisfied our decidedly serious members, than they 
now propitiate Mr. Rae Wilson. At least, one 
Society night, in escorting a female Fellow to- 



XXXll NOTICE OF THE AUTHOR. 

wards her home, she suddenly stopped me, taking 
advantage, perhaps, of the awful locality, and its 
associations, just in front of our chief criminal 
prison, and looking earnestly in my face, by the 
light of a Newgate lamp, inquired somewhat ab- 
ruptly, 'Mr. Hood I are you not an Infidel?' 

" In the mean time, whilst thus playing at Lite- 
rature, an event was ripening which was to intro- 
duce me to Authorship in earnest, and make, the 
Muse, with whom I had only flirted, my compa- 
nion for life. It had often occurred to me, that a 
striking, romantical, necromantical, metaphysical, 
melo-dramatical, Germanish story, might be com- 
posed, the interest of which should turn on the 
mysterious influences of the fate of A over the 
destiny of B, the said parties having no more 
natural or apparent connection with each other 
than Tenterden Steeple and the Goodwin Sands. 
An instance of this occult contingency occurred 
in my own case ; for I did not even know by 
sight the unfortunate gentleman on whose un- 
timely exit depended my entrance on the literary 
stage. In the beginning of the year 1821, a 
memorable duel, originating in a pen-and-ink 
quarrel, took place at Chalk Farm, and termi- 
nated in the death of Mr. John Scott, the able 
Editor of the London Magazine. The melan- 
choly result excited great interest, in which I 
fully participated, little dreaming that his catas- 
trophe involved any consequences of importance 



NOTICE OF THE AUTHOR. XXXlll 

to myself. But, on the loss of its conductor, the 
• Periodical passed into other hands. The new 
Proprietors were my friends ; they sent for me, 
and after some preliminaries, I was duly installed 
as a sort of sub-Editor of the London Maga- 
zine. 

" It would be affectation to say, that engraving 
was resigned with regret. There is always some- 
thing mechanical about the art — moreover, it is 
as unwholesome as wearisome to sit copper-fast- 
ened to a board, with a cantle scooped out to 
accommodate your stomach, if you have one, 
painfully ruling, ruling, and still ruling lines 
straight or crooked, by the long hundred to the 
square inch, at the doubly-hazardous risk which 
Wordsworth so deprecates, of ' growing double.' 
So farewell Woollett ! Strange ! Bartolozzi ! I 
have said, my vanity did not rashly plunge me 
into authorship ; but no sooner was there a legiti- 
mate opening than I jumped at it, d la Grimaldi, 
head foremost, and was speedily behind the 
scenes. 

" To judge by my zeal and delight in my new 
pursuit, the bowl had at last found its natural 
bias. Not content with taking articles, like can- 
didates for holy orders — with rejecting articles 
like the Belgians — I dreamt articles, thought 
articles, wrote articles, which were all inserted 
by the editor, of course with the concurrence of 
his deputy. The more irksome parts of author- 
c 



■XXXIV NOTICE OF THE AUTHOR. 

ship, such as the correction of the press, were to 
■me labors of love. I received a revise from Mr. 
Baldwin's Mr. Parker, as if it had been a proof 
of his regard ; forgave him all his slips, and 
■really thought that printers' devils were not so 
black .as they are painted. But my top-gallant 
glory was in ' our Contributors ! ' How I used 
to look forward to Elia ! and backward for Haz- 
litt, and all round for Edward Herbert, and how 
I used to look up to Allan Cunningham ! for at 
that time the London had a goodly list of writers 
— a rare company. It is now defunct, and per- 
haps no ex-periodical might so appropriately be 
apostrophized with the Irish funereal question — 
'Arrah, honey, why did you die ? ' Had not you 
an editor, and elegant prose writers, and beautiful 
poets, and broths of boys for criticism and classics, 
and wits and humorists, — Elia, Cary, Procter, 
Cunningham, Bowring, Barton, Hazlitt, Elton, 
Hartley Coleridge, Talfourd, Soane, Horace 
Smith, Reynolds, Poole, Clare, and Thomas Ben- 
yon, with a power besides. Had n't you Lions' 
Heads with Traditional Tales ? Had n't you an 
Opium Eater, and a Dwarf, and a Giant, and a 
Learned Lamb, and a. Green Man? Had not 
you a regular Drama, and a Musical Report, and 
a Report of Agriculture, and an Obituary and a 
Price Current, and a current price, of only half- 
a-crown ? Arrah, why did you die ? Why, some- 
how the contributors fell away — the concern went 



NOTICE OF THE AUTHOR. XXXV 

into other bands — worst of all, a new editor tried 
to put the Belles Lettres in Utilitarian envelopes; 
whereupon, the circulation of the Miscellany, 
like that of poor Le Fevre, got slower, slower, 
slower, — and slower still — and then stopped for 
ever! It was a sorry scattering of those old 
Londoners ! Some went out of the country : one 
(Clare) went into it. Lamb retreated to Cole- 
brooke. Mr. Gary presented himself to the 
British Museum. Reynolds and Barry took to 
engrossing when they should pen a stanza, and 
Thomas Benyon gave up literature. 

" It is with mingled feelings of pride, pleasure, 
and pain, that I revert to those old times, when 
the writers I had long known and admired in 
spirit were present to me in the flesh — when I 
had the delight of listening to their wit and 
wisdom from their own lips, of gazing on their 
faces, and grasping their right hands. Familiar 
figures rise before me, familiar voices ring in my 
ears, and, alas ! amongst them are shapes that I 
must never see, sounds that I can never hear, 
again. Before my departure from England, I 
was one of the few who saw the grave close over 
the remains of one whom to know as a friend was 
to love as a relation. Never did a better soul go 
to a better world ! Never perhaps, (giving the 
he direct to the common imputation of envy, 
malice, and hatred, amongst the brotherhood,) 
never did an author descend — to quote his fa- 



XXXVl NOTICE OF THE AUTHOR. 

voLirite Sir T. Browne — into ' the land of the 
mole and the pismire' so hung with golden opi- 
nions, and honored and I'egretted with such sin- 
cere eulogies and elegies, by his contemporaries. 
To HIM, the first of these, my reminiscences, is 
eminently due, for I lost in him not only a dear 
and kind friend, but an invaluable critic ; one 
whom, were such literary adoptions in modern 
use, I might well name, as Cotton called Walton, 
my ' father.' 

" I was sitting one morning beside our Editor, 
busily correcting proofs, when a visitor was an- 
nounced, whose name, grumbled by a low ventri- 
loquial voice, like Tom Pipes calling from the 
hold through the hatchway, did not resound dis- 
tinctly on my tympanum. However, the door 
opened, and in came a stranger, a figure remark- 
able at a glance, with a fine head, on a small 
spare body, supported by two almost immaterial 
legs. He was clothed in sables, of a bygone 
fashion, but there was something wanting, or 
something present about him, that certified he 
was neither a divine, nor a physician, nor a 
schoolmaster: from a certain neatness and so- 
briety in his dress, coupled wdth his sedate bear- 
ing, he might have been taken, but that such a 
costume would be anomalous, for a Quaker in 
black. He looked still more like (what he really 
was) a literary Modern Antique, a New-Old 
Author, a living Anachronism, contemporary at 



NOTICE OF THE AUTHOR. XXXVll 

once with Burton tlie Elder, and Colman the 
Younger. Meanwhile he advanced with rather 
a peculiar gait, his walk was plantigrade, and 
with a cheerful ' How d'ye,' and one of the bland- 
est, sweetest smiles that ever brightened a manly 
countenance, held out two fingers to the Editor. 
The two gentlemen in. black soon fell into dis- 
course; and whilst they conferred, the Lavater 
principle within me set to work upon the interest- 
ing specimen thus presented to its speculations. 
It was a striking intellectual face, full of wiry 
lines, physiognomical quips and cranks, that gave 
it great character. There was much earnestness 
about the brows, and a deal of speculation in the 
eyes, which were brown and bright, and ' quick 
in turning;' the nose, a decided one, though of 
no established order ; and there was a handsome 
smartness about the mouth. Altogether it was 
no common face — none of those willow-pattern 
ones, which nature turns out by thousands at her 
potteries ; — but more like a chance specimen of 
the Chinese ware, one to the set — unique, an- 
tique, quaint. No one who had once seen it, 
could pretend not to know it again. It was no 
face to lend its countenance to any confusion of 
persons in a Comedy of Errors. You might 
have sworn to it piecemeal, — a separate afiidavit 
for every feature. In short, his face was as 
original as his figure ; his figure as his charac- 
ter; his character as his writings; his writings 



XXXVlll NOTICE OF THE AUTHOR. 

the most original of the age. After the literary 

business had been settled, the Editor invited his 

contributor to, dinner, adding ' we shall have a 
hare — ' 

'And — and — and — and many Friends ! ' 

"The hesitation in the speech, and the readi- 
ness of the allusion, were alike characteristic of 
the individual, whom his familiars will perchance 
have recognized already as the delightful Essay- 
ist, the capital Critic, the pleasant Wit and 
Humorist, the delicate-minded and large-hearted 
Charles Lamb ! He was shy like myself with 
strangers, so, that despite my yearnings, our first 
meeting scarcely amounted to an introduction. 
We were both at dinner, amongst the hare's 
many friends, but our acquaintance got no far- 
ther, in spite of a desperate attempt on my part 
to attract his notice. His complaint of the Decay 
of Beggars presented another chance : I wrote 
on coarse paper, and in ragged English, a letter 
of thanks to him as if from one of his mendicant 
clients, but it produced no effect. I had given 
up all hope, when one night, sitting sick and sad, 
in my bedroom, racked with the rheumatism, 
the door was suddenly opened, the well-known 
quaint figure in black walked in without any 
formality, and with a cheerful ' Well, boy, how 
are you?' and the bland, sweet smile, extended 
the two fingers. They were eagerly clutched, 



NOTICE OF THE AUTHOR. XXXIX 

of course, and from that hour we were firm 
friends. , 

'*Thus characteristically commenced my inti- 
macy with C. Lamb. He had recently become 
my neighbour, and in a few days called again, to 
ask me to tea, ' to meet Wordsworth.' In spite 
of any idle jests to the contrary, the name had a 
spell in it that drew me to Colebrooke Cottage 
with more alacrity than consisted with prudence, 
stiff joints, and a North wind. But I was willing 
to run, at least hobble, some risk, to be of a party 
in a parlour with the Author of Laodamia and 
Heartleap Well. As for his Betty Foy-bles, he 
is not the first man by many, who has met with 
a simple fracture through riding his theory-hack 
so far and so fast, that it broke down with him. 
If he has now and then put on a nightcap, so 
have his own next-door mountains. If he has 
babbled, sometimes, like an infant of two years 
old ; he has also thought, and felt, and spoken, 
the beautiful fancies, and tender affections, and 
artless language, of the children who can say 
' We are seven." Along with food for babes, he 
has furnished strong meat for men. So I put on 
my great-coat, and in a few minutes found my- 
self, for the first time, at a door, that opened to 
me as frankly as its master's heart ; for, without 
any preliminaries of hall, passage, or parlour, one 
single step across the threshold brought me into 
the sitting-room, and in sight of the domestic 



V 



xl NOTICE OF THE AUTHOR. 

hearth. The room looked brown with ' old bokes,' 
and beside the fire sat Wordsworth, and his sis- 
ter, the hospitable Elia, and the excellent Bridget. 
* * * * 

"Amongst other notable men who came to 
Colebrooke Cottage, I had twice the good fortune 
of meeting with S. T. Coleridge. The first time 
he came from Highgate with Mrs. Gilman, to 
dine with ' Charles and Mary.' What a contrast 
to Lamb was the full-bodied Poet, with his waving 
white hair, and his face round, ruddy, and unfur- 
rowed as a holy Friar's ! Apropos to which face 
he gave us a humorous description of an un- 
finished portrait, that served him for a sort of 
barometer, to indicate the state of his popularity. 
So sure as his name made any temporary stir, 
out came the canvas on the easel, and a request 
from the artist for another sitting: down sank 
the Original in the public notice, and back went 
the copy into a corner, till some fresh publication 
or accident again brought forward the Poet ; and 
then forth came the picture for a few more touches. 
I sincerely hope it has been finished ! What a 
benign, smiling face it was ! What a comfort- 
able, respectable figure ! What a model, me- 
thought, as I watched and admired the ' Old Man 
eloquent,' for a Christian bishop ! But he was, 
perhaps, scarcely orthodox enough to be trusted 
with a mitre. At least, some of his voluntaries 
would have frightened a common everyday con- 



NOTICE OF THE AUTHOR. xli 

gregation from their propriety. Amongst other 
matters of discourse, he came to speak of the 
strange notions some literal- minded persons form 
of the joys of Heaven ; joys they associated with 
mere temporal things, in which, for his own part, 
finding no delight in this world, he could find no 
bliss hereafter, without a change in his nature, 
tantamount to the loss of his personal identity. 
For instance, he said, there are persons who place 
the whole angelical beatitude in the possession of 
a pair of wings to flap about with, like ' a sort of 
celestigl 'poultry^ After dinner he got up, and 
began pacing to and fro, with his hands behind 
his back, talking and walking, as Lamb laughingly 
hinted, as if qualifying for an itinerant preacher ; 
now fetching a simile from Loddiges' garden, at 
Hackney ; and then flying off for an illustration 
to the sugar-making in Jamaica. With his fine, 
flowing voice, it was glorious music, of the 'never- 
ending, still-beginning' kind; and you did not 
wish it to end. It was rare flying, as in the Nas- 
sau Balloon ; you knew not whither, nor did you 
care. Like his own bright-eyed Marinere, he 
had a spell in his voice that would not let you 
go. To attempt to describe my own feeling after- 
ward, 1 had been carried, spiralling, up to heaven 
by a whirlwind intertwisted with sunbeams, giddy 
and dazzled, but not displeased, and had then 
been rained down again with«a shower of mun- 
dane Stocks and stones that battered out of me aU 



Xlii NOTICE OF THE AUTHOR. 

recollection of what I had heard, and what I had 
seen ! " 

We have drawn rather freely upon Hood's 
account of his early life, both because we think 
that these autobiographical sketches convey a 
lively and true impression of the personal character 
of the man, and because our information concern- 
ing his career after he became distinguished in 
literature consists, in the main, of barren facts 
which are already well known to the world. 

Before Hood became connected with the London 
Magazine, he had, as appears above, printed 
some trifles in a Dundee newspaper and in the 
Dundee Magazine. His first book. Odes and 
Addresses to Great People, was published anony- 
mously, and was partly the work of his brother-in- 
law, Mr. J. H. Reynolds. His next was, we be- 
lieve, the Progress of Cant. In 1826, he made 
a collection of his contributions to the London 
Magazine, and printed it with some additions, 
under the title of Whims and Oddities. A second 
and a third edition of this book was demanded by 
the public in the course of the two succeeding 
years. His National Tales appeared in 1827, 
and was followed by a little volume containing 
the Plea of the Midsummer Fairies, Hero and 
Leander, Lycus the Centaur, and other poems. 
He began the Comic Annual in 1829, and it was 
continued nine years. In the same year came 



NOTICE OF THE AUTHOR. xliii 

out the comic poem of" the Epping Hunt. Hood 
was also for one year editor of the Gem, and 
wrote for it the wonderful ballad of Eugene 
Aram. 

In the spring of 1831, Hood became occupier 
of a pleasant residence in Essex, called Lake 
House.* Here he wrote his novel of Tylnej 
Hall. Pecuniary difficulties compelled him to 
leave Lake House in 1835. The Comic Annual 
terminated in 1837, and the next year Hood 
printed a selection of his contributions to it, with 
the addition of new matter, in a series of monthly 
numbers ; this was the very popular miscellany 
called Hood's Own. The state of his health now 
obliged him to go to the continent to recruit, and 
while in Belgium he printed his delightful little 
book. Up the Rhine. On his return to England 
he became editor of the New Monthly Magazine, 
after his retirement from which, in 1843, he pub- 
lished the best of his writings in that periodical, 
with additions in prose and verse, under the style 
of Whimsicalities. 

In 1844 Hood started his last periodical, Hood's 
Magazine, and he continued to contribute to its 
pages until within a month before his death. 
Among the pieces which he furnished, are the 
Schoolmistress Abroad, and his novel of Our 
Family, which he did not live to complete, and 

* National Cyclopaedia. 



Xliv NOTICE OF THE AUTHOR. 

the last chapters of which he wrote propped up 
by pillows in bed. 

Towards the close of the poet's life, a govern- 
ment pension of 100/. was offered him by Sir 
Robert Peel, which was transferred, at his own 
request, to his wife. 

Hood died on the 3d of May, 1845. He left, 
besides his widow, two children, — a son and a 
daughter. As the government pension would 
terminate with Mrs. Hood's life, a subscription 
was set on foot for the purpose of raising a sum, 
to be held in trust for the benefit of the family 
during the widow's life, and at her death to be 
divided between the children. 

Hood was his whole life an invalid, and the 
slow disease which had been many years wasting 
a fragile constitution was terminated by months 
of extreme debility and suffering. To these bodily 
afflictions the anxieties of poverty were added 
towards the close of his career, anxieties which 
could have been only partially alleviated by the 
small pension conferred on him by the govern- 
ment. Such being his circumstances, it would 
have been no wonder if something of the sick- 
man had got into his compositions, — a dash of 
peevishness and despondency, or at any rate, dis- 
torted views and morbid fancies ; and the world, 
which has often been forward to excuse the out- 
rageous vices of genius, might not unreasonably 
have pardoned a little to the ordinary infirmities 



NOTICE OF THE AUTHOR. xlv 

of linman nature. But no traces, of disease will 
be found in any of Hood's writings. They are 
pervaded by a cheerfulness, a spring and elasticity 
which belong not merely to health, but to vigorous 
youth. We shall look in vain for petuhmce, 
acidity, ennui, misanthropy. He never even lays 
himself out to gain the reader's just sympathy for 
his sufferings, or takes credit to himself for his 
patience. If he alludes to his private misfortunes, 
it is to turn them into a laughing apology for not 
being punctually ready with his expected supply 
of amusement. When troubles were pressing upon 
him thicker than ever, he forgot his private griefs 
to plead the cause of greater sufferers in such 
compositions as the Song of the Shirt* and the 
Lady's Dream. This manly fortitude and self- 
forgetful benevolence constitute Hood a pheno- 
menon in literature, and the interest with which 
his last days were watched both in America and 
in England, as well as the universal tribute of 
admiration called forth by his death, showed that 
the singular virtues of his character were appre- 
ciated by the w^orld. 

It might be supposed, when we consider the 
circumstances of sickness and sorrow under which 
many of Hood's comic pieces were written, that 
his mirth was often of that artificial kind which 
professional purveyors of amusement for the pub- 

* First printed in the fiftli volume of Punch. 



xlvi NOTICE OF THE AUTHOR. 

lie must frequently be obliged to assume. In- 
stances enough there are, great and small, of this 
forced gayety, from Moliere down to the poor 
vulgar clown who breaks his joke and his head 
for our entertainment, in the pantomime. Too 
often strained eyes and tired hands must tug at 
the needle to make us fine, and sometimes aching 
heads and hearts must scratch at the pen to make 
us merry : 

" Et tel mot, pour avoir rejoui le lecteur, 
A cout^ bien souvent des larmes a I'auteur." 

But it seems to us that such a view of Hood's 
humorous writings would smack of sentimentality. 
There is no hollowness in his mirth ; he laughs 
w^ith his subject, and his humour, if not boisterous, 
is hearty and sincere. It is no objection to this 
supposition, that Hood passes with such readiness 
from comical conceits to pathetic or even awful 
ideas. Some minds are capable of contemplating 
only one side of a subject at a time, and such are 
not easily diverted from any current of feeling 
into which they may happen to be drawn. Others, 
of a larger range and superior susceptibility, 
gifted with an equal sympathy for the sad and 
the ludicrous, take in the whole of a subject at 
once, and reflect its lights and its shades with the 
same fidelity. To them the grand and the gro- 
tesque present themselves, as they are found in 
life and in human nature, not as things incom- 



NOTICE OF THE AUTHOR. xlvii 

patible, but contemporaneously and side by side. 
In fact, it is only " this muddy vesture of decay," 
the subjection of the mind to physical sensations 
and temporal anxieties, which makes us prone to 
look upon laughter as a thing profane, and to 
regard the sadder as the wiser man. The great 
Sir Thomas More, conscious of innocence, assured 
of immortality, and full of faith in God and in 
goodness, did not think mirth unseasonable even 
upon the scaffold. Something of the same eleva- 
tion of spirit and breadth of view, cooperating 
with a happy temper, carried Hood cheerfully 
through the harshest trials of life, and the very 
valley of the shadow of death. " His sportive 
humour, like the rays from a crackling fire in a 
dilapidated building, had long played among the 
fractures of a ruined constitution, anfl flashed 
upon the world through the flaws and rents of a 
shattered wreck. Yet infirm as was the fabric, 
the equal mind was never disturbed to the last. 
He contemplated the approach of death with a 
composed philosophy and a resigned soul.* His 
bodily sufferings had made no change in his men- 
tal character. It was the same as in his publica- 
tions — at times lively and jocular, at times serious 
and affecting; and upon the one great subject of 
a death -bed hope, he declared himself, as through- 

* See tKe remarkable verses, written a very short time 
before he died, " Farewell Life ! my senses swim." (Vol. ii. 
p. 104.) 



xlvlii NOTICE OF THE AUTHOR. 

out life, opposed to canters and hypocrites, — a 
class he had always detested and written against ; 
while he set the highest price upon sincere Chris- 
tianity." * 

Hood's poetry appears to us to give a very 
distinct impression of the man. His modest esti- 
mation of himself and his genuine refinement did 
not, indeed, allow him to make his personal con- 
cernments the leading subject of his verse, and 
forbade indelicate confidences wath the public, 
but his disposition was ingenuous and he was 
perfectly free from the taint of affectation. His 
best pieces evince an exquisite purity of taste as 
well as of feeling, and not a line in his writings 
can be charged with vulgarity. He was as tender 
as he was manly, in his affections and in his sen- 
sibilities. One of his own guild has said of him, 
" he was a man of a most free and noble spirit, 
who harboured none of the grudging jealousies too 
often attendant on the pursuit of literature, who 
found no detraction from his own merits in the 
success and praise of another." He displayed 
the same generosity in his treatment of all man- 
kind. Consequently, such satire as his writings 
contain is general and not personal, (the Ode 
to Rae Wilson is hardly an exception to 'this 
remark,) and it is besides good-humoured and not 
malignant ; it is meant to lead men to improve- 

* Literary Gazette. 



NOTICE OF THE AUTHOR. xlix 

ment throiigh their better feelings, — the only 
kind of satire that ever did much good. The 
whole temper of the man was cheerful, benevo- 
lent, and liberal; his heart and mind in every 
part sound, and rough as was his path in life, his 
feelings preserved throughout the freshness and 
sensitiveness of youth. These noble qualities in- 
spire us with an affectionate attachment to Hood 
similar to that which we feel for Charles Lamb, 
whom he resembled in many points both of cha- 
racter and of genius. 

We will conclude our very inadequate notice 
of this amiable writer, with a few paragraphs by 
a candid and genial critic in the Edinburgh Re- 
view.* 

"In looking to the character of Mr. Hood's 
mind, we are immediately struck with the variety 
which it displays. We do not at the present day 
require to be told that there is no incompatibility 
between wit and pathos, or that sensibility and 
humour may dwell together in the same heart ; for 
we have been rendered familiar with such asso- 
ciations in the character of our greatest writers. 
But in Hood this alliance is more than usually 
conspicuous. He is open to all influences, and 
yields himself with equal pliancy to all. He can 

* April, 1846. 
D 



1 ■ NOTICE OF THE AUTHOR. 

call up the most grotesque conceptions, — the most 
incongruous and ludicrous imagery ; whole trains 
of comic and mirth-inspiring fancies wait upon 
his will without an effort : but he seems to find 
himself as much at home in the contemplation of 
serious human emotion — in listening to, or echo- 
ing back, some old and moving story of love and 
pity — or letting his thoughts wander with devout 
gratitude over the beauties of creation, or in sym- 
pathy with the fading glories of old traditions. 
In not a few of his poems he has even ventured 
to commingle these discordant elements ; and the 
quaintest allusions, quips and cranks of all kinds, 
stand side by side with thoughts of earnest in- 
terest, and happy homely touches of feeling, 
which sink quietly but surely into the heart. 
He has not only paid his court alternately to 
Comedy and Tragedy, and with success ; but he 
may be said to have introduced these ancient 
rivals to each other, and taught therli by an inter- 
change of good offices to live together in cordial 
union. 

"Another indispensable quality of a poet Hood 
possessed in a high degree, — that of clear vision. 
It pervaded his choice of themes, his imagery, 
the whole expression of his thoughts. For the 
mystical or the vaporous, — those reveries of airy 
republics and fantastic schemes of moral regene- 
ration, on which the great genius of Shelley 
wasted so much of its powers, and from which, 



NOTICE OF THE AUTHOR. li 

in fact, scarcely any thing he ever wrote is en- 
tirely free, (with the exception of the stern drama 
of the ' Cenci,') — and still more for those fierce 
and ghastly exaggerations — cBgri somnia — with 
which our later poetical literature had teemed, 
he had no taste or sympathy whatever. Even 
where dealing with an airy and fanciful theme, — 
as in the ' Plea of the Midsummer Fairies,' — the 
Elfin pictures are as clear and distinct as if he 
had been painting a scene in the Strand or at 
Exeter Hall ; the Tiny Elves flutter and gambol 
in their appropriate habit, and talk and plead 
their case before grim and unrelenting Time, with 
a wonderful air of business-like reality. He chose 
no theme, in short, till he saw his way clearly to 
some object ; he attempted to paint nothing till 
he had realized it to his own mind. Generally 
speaking, therefore, he shunned the visionary and 
the abstract; he could throw himself back into 
the romance of the past, but his home was natu- 
rally among the realities of the present ; and his 
aim was to soften its harsh and rugged features, 
and to brighten them, as far as they could be 
brightened, by the cheerful sunshine of poetry. 

'' The general clearness of view and the deci- 
sion of purpose which are observable in the 
treatment of his subjects, can of course only be 
appreciated by a perusal of them as a whole. 
But the lively and graphic way in which he pre- 
sents an image to the mind, [might be illustrated 



lii NOTICE OF THE AUTHOR. 

by a hundred examples.] And with regard to 
these it may be remarked, that they owe their 
effect, first, to this — that he never appears to 
draw his images from books, — presenting merely 
a reflection from a reflection, but from his own 
observation of nature ; and next, to the great 
simplicity of expression in which the image is 
embodied. He knew well that plainness wins us 
more than eloquence ; — therefore he never dis- 
dained a homely word if it was the fittest to con- 
vey his meaning ; and hence an air of originality 
even in the expression of images which are in 
themselves of no remarkable novelty. It may 
be added, too, that the character of their expres- 
sion changes, as it ought to do, with the nature 
of the subject ; for while in themes like ' Eugene 
Aram's Dream,' or the 'Old Elm Tree,' where 
the ballad measure is adopted, the diction is of a 
kindred simplicity ; in others, such as the ' Plea 
of the Midsummer Fairies,' and 'The Two Swans,' 
it possesses a quaint and antique solemnity, admit- 
ting inversions, compound epithets, and new appli- 
cations of old w^ords — these last, however, being 
sparingly employed, though generally with much 
felicity. 

" We have said that the works of Mr. Hood, 
taking them as a whole, exhibit a combination of 
genuine poetical excellencies, with not a few de- 
fects which enter deeply into their structure, and 
are likely to be injurious to their permanent popu- 



NOTICE OF THE AUTHOR. liii 

larity; and we have hinted that these defects, 
which seem inextricably interwoven with his 
comic poems, and to have colored too deeply his 
more serious compositions, are traceable to causes 
over which he had but little control. We allude 
to the vein of exaggeration, endless digression, 
and forced conceit, which disfigure the one ; and 
the long-winded accumulation of details, the in- 
disposition, if not the inability, to retrench a single 
trait of description which in itself appeared sus- 
ceptible of introduction, that overload and embar- 
rass the other. 

" To his comic poems this censure appears to 
be particularly applicable. His brain teems with 
humorous fancies, but he cannot afford to part 
with one. Every quip or crotchet which the train 
of association suggests, he insists on imparting to 
the jDublic ; and, as might be expected from this 
indiscriminate effusion, for every stroke really 
successful we have ten which are forced or un- 
natural. An absolute Anthology of bad jokes 
and wretched plays on words, might be compiled 
from his writings, rich as we at the same time 
admit them to be in real wit and humor. 'A 
quibble is to Shakspeare,' says Johnson, 'what 
luminous vapors are to the traveller ; he follows 
it at all adventures ; it is sure to lead him out of 
his way, and sure to engulf him in the mire.' 
What is thus absurdly applied to Shakspeare is 
literally true of Mr. Hood. Once caught by a 



liv NOTICE OF THE AUTHOR. 

play on words, his course defies calculation : one 
conceit brings on another, till we lose sight en- 
tirely of the point from which we started, and 
lose at the same time all anxiety to return to it. 

" But though it is in his humorous pieces that 
this tendency to extravagance appears most offen- 
sive, even his more serious compositions partake 
of the same tendency to overload the subject with 
* wasteful and ridiculous excess.' What, for in- 
stance, shall we say of the ' Haunted House ? ' 
We grant that each feature of the picture, taken 
by itself, is good; and that the whole has a 
sombre and sepulchral tone which produces a 
strong impression on the mind. Had the poem 
formed the porch to an edifice of like propor- 
tions, — had it formed the introduction to some 
tragic tale of blood, — this long note of prepara- 
tion might not have been out of place ; though 
even then we should have held that the effect 
would have been heightened if one half the de- 
tails had been retrenched. But, standing by 
itself, and leading to nothing, the long array of 
dreary imagery simply wearies and fatigues. In 
like manner, in the ' Midsummer Fairies,' there 
is too great an anxiety shown to exhaust all the 
views in which the subject can be placed ; till, as 
we listen to the interminable rejoinders, we are 
tempted to imitate the example of the judge in 
the Plaideurs, and to request that every thing 
prior to the Deluge may be omitted. 



NOTICE OF THE AUTHOR. Iv 

" We trace this tendency, which we regard as 
the chief drawback to the merits of these poems, 
and their chances of future popularity, in a great 
measure, to the unfortunate effects produced by a 
constant connection with, and dependence on peri- 
odical literature. This connection, early begun in 
Hood's case, continued through life, not as a mat- 
ter of choice on his part, but of stern necessity. 
Now we know few things more adverse to the 
formation of a great poet, or to the production of 
works which are to be of an enduring character, 
than the education which is acquired in such a 
school. The constantly recurring demands of 
Periodical Literature are fatal to all deliberation 
of view, — to all care, or study, or selection of 
materials ; in the case of those who engage in it 
as a profession. The tale of bricks must be fur.- 
nished by the appointed day, let the straw be 
found where it will. Equally adverse is its influ- 
ence to calmness and repose of manner, and to 
that breadth and evenness of composition which 
are the distinguishing characteristics of those 
works which we regard as the classics of our 
language. Be wise, instructive, graceful, — natu- 
ral if you will, is the lesson inculcated by the 
Genius of periodical literature — but, above all, 
be pointed, be striking. Those are the accesso- 
ries — these last only are essential and indispen- 
sable. Hence the current of thought is rarely 
suffered to flow onward with its natural move- 



Ivi NOTICE OF THE AUTHOR. 

merit ; it must be artificially fretted into foam, — • 
thrown up in epigrammatic jets, or scattered 
about in sparkling showers of conceits and quib- 
bles. 

" How can one educated under such influences 
be expected to deal with the compositions of the 
month as he would with works destined for eter- 
nity? Ascertain space must be filled in a given 
time ; and if a fertile mind, prodigal of ideas and 
images, pours them out before him in such profu- 
sion as to enable him to accomplish his task, and 
do his spiriting gently, — need we wonder that he 
transfers them to paper without being very soli- 
citous as to their coherence or propriety, provided 
they present themselves in the garb of novelty, 
and dazzle the fancy with somewhat picturesque 
and unexpected ? Rather, in the case of Hood, 
may we wonder that, circumstanced as he was, 
he has not yielded more frequently to the tempta- 
tions which the exigencies of periodical literature 
present ; and that, harassed by the daily claims 
of the present, he has written so much which 
posterity, after all, will be willing to remember." 



THE PLEA 

OF 

THE xMIDSUMMER FAIRIES. 

1827. 
VOL. I. 1 



TO 



CHARLES LAMB. 



My dear Friend, 

I THANK my literary fortune that I am not reduced, 
like many better wits, to barter dedications, for the hope or 
promise of patronage, with some nominally great man ; but 
that where true affection points, and honest respect, I am free 
to gratify my head and heart by a sincere inscription. An 
intimacy and dearness, worthy of a much earlier date than 
our acquaintance can refer to, direct me at once to your name : 
and with this acknowledgment of your ever kind feeling 
towards me, I desire to record a respect and admiration for 
you as a writer, which no one acquainted with our literature, 
save Elia himself, will think disproportionate or misplaced. 
If I had not these better reasons to govern me, I should be 
guided to the same selection by your intense yet critical relish 
for the works of our great Dramatist, and for that favourite 
play in particular which has furnished the subject of my 
verses. 

It is my design, in the following Poem, to celebrate by an 
allegory, that immortality which Shakspeare has conferred 
on the Fairy mythology by his Midsummer Night's Dream. 
But for him, those pretty children of our childhood would 
leave barely their names to our maturer years; they belong, 
as the mites upon the plum, to the bloom of ftuicy, a thing 
generally too frail and beautiful to withstand the rude handling 
of Time : but the Poet has made this most perishable part of 
the mind's creation equal to the most enduring; he has so 



4 TO CHARLES LAMB. 

intertwined the Elfins with human sympathies, and linked 
them by so many delightful associations with the productions 
of nature, that they are as real to the mind's eye, as their 
green magical circles to the outer sense. 

It would have been a pity for such a race to go extinct, 
even though they were but as the butterflies that hover about 
the leaves and blossoms of the visible world. 
I am, 

My dear friend. 
Yours most truly, 

T. Hood. 



THE 

PLEA OF THE MIDSUMMER FAIRIES. 

I. 
*TwAS in that mellow season of the year 
When the hot Sim singes the yellow leaves 
Till they be gold, — and with a broader sphere 
The Moon looks down on Ceres and her sheaves ■■, 
When more abundantly the spider weaves, 
And the cold Avind breathes from a chillier clime ; 
That forth I fared, on one of those still eves, 
Toucli'd with the dewy sadness of the time, 
To think how the bright months had spent their 
prime. 

II. 
So that, wherever I address'd my way, 
I seem'd to track the melancholy feet 
Of him that is the Father of Decay, 
And spoils at once the sour weed and the sweet ; — 
Wherefore regretfully I made retreat 
To some unwasted regions of my brain, 
Charm'd with the light of summer and the heat. 
And bade that bounteous season bloom again. 
And sprout fresh flowers in mine own domain. 



THE PLEA OF THE 



It was a shady and sequester'd scene, 
Like those famed gardens of Boccaccio, 
Planted with his own laurels ever green, 
And roses that for endless summer blow ; 
And there were fountain springs to overflow 
Their marble basins, — and cool green arcades 
Of tall o'erarching sycamores, to throw 
Athwart the dappled path their dancing shades,— 
With timid coneys cropping the green blades. 

IV. 

And there were crystal pools, peopled wdth fish. 
Argent and gold ; and some of Tyrian skin. 
Some crimson-barr'd ; — and ever at a wish 
They rose obsequious till the wave grew thin 
As glass upon their backs, and then dived in. 
Quenching their ardent scales in watery gloom ; 
Whilst others with fresh hues row'd forth to win 
My changeable regard, — for so we doom 
Things born of thought to vanish or to bloom. 

V. 

And there were many birds of many dyes, 
From tree to tree still faring to and fro, 
And stately peacocks with their splendid eyes. 
And gorgeous pheasants with their golden glow, 
Like Iris just bedabbled in her bow. 
Besides some vocalists, without a name, 



MIDSUMMER FAIRIES. 4 

That oft on fairy errands come and go, 
With accents magical ; — and all were tame, 
And pecked at my hand where'er I came. 

VI. 

And for my sylvan company, in lieu 
Of Pampinea with her lively peers, 
Sate Queen Titania with her pretty crew, 
All in their liveries quaint, with elfin gears, 
For she was gracious to my childish years, 
And made me free of her enchanted round ; 
Wherefore this dreamy scene she still endears, 
And plants her court upon a verdant mound. 
Fenced with umbrageous woods and groves pro- 
found. 

VII. 

" Ah me,*' she cries, " was ever moonlight seen 
So clear and tender for our midnight trips ? 
Go some one forth, and with a trump convene 
My lieges all ! " — Away the goblin skips 
A pace or two apart, and deftly strips 
The ruddy skin from a sweet rose's cheek, 
Then blows the shuddering leaf between his lips. 
Making it utter forth a shrill small shriek, 
Like a fray'd bird in the gray owlet's beak. 



And loj upon my fix'd delighted ken 
Appear'd the loyal Fays. — Some by degrees 
Crept from the primrose buds that open'd then, 



8 THE PLEA OF THE 

And some from bell-shaped blossoms like the 

bees, 
Some from the dewy meads, and rushy leas, 
Flew up like chafers when the rustics pass ; 
.Some from the rivers, others from tall trees 
Di'opp'd, like shed blossoms, silent to the grass, 
.Spirits and elfins small, of every class. 

IX. 

Peri and Pixy, and quaint Puck the Antic, 
Brought Pobin Goodfellow, that merry swain ; 
And stealthy Mab, queen of old realms romantic, 
Came too, from distance, in her tiny wain, 
Fresh dripping from a cloud — some bloomy rain, 
Then circling the bright Moon, had wash'd her 

car. 
And still bedew'd it with a various stain : 
Lastly came Ariel, shooting from a star, 
Who bears all fairy embassies afar. 



But Oberon, that night elsewhere exiled, 
Was absent, whether some distemper'd spleen 
Kept him and his fair mate unreconciled, 
Or warfare with the Gnome (whose race had been 
Sometime obnoxious), kept him from his queen, 
And made her now peruse the starry skies 
Prophetical with such an absent mien ; 
Howbeit, the tears stole often to her eyes. 
And oft the Moon was incensed with her sighs — 



MIDSUMMER FAIRIES. 



XI. 

Which made the elves sport drearily, and soon 
Their hushing dances languish'd to a stand, 
Like midnight leaves when, as the Zephyrs swoon, 
All on their drooping stems they sink unfann'd, — • 
So into silence droop'd the fairy band, 
To see their empress dear so pale and still, 
Crowding her softly round on either hand, 
As pale as frosty snow-drops, and as chill, 
To whom the sceptred dame reveals her ill. 

XII. 

" Alas,' quoth she, " ye know our fairy lives 
Are leased upon the fickle faith of men ; 
Not measured out against fate's mortal knives, 
Like human gossamers, we perish w^hen 
We fade, and are forgot in worldly ken, — 
Though poesy has thus prolong'd our date, 
Thanks be to the sweet Bard's auspicious pea 
That rescued us so long ! — howbeit of late 
I feel some dark misgivings of our fate. 

XIII. 

" And this dull day my melancholy sleep 
Hath been so throng'd with images of woe, 
That even now I cannot choose but weep 
To think this was some sad prophetic show 
Of future horror to befall us so, — 
Of mortal wreck and uttermost distress, — 



10 THE PLEA OF THE 

Yea, our poor empire's fall and overthrow, — 
For this was my long vision's dreadful stress, 
And when I waked my trouble was not less. 

XIV. 

" Whenever to the clouds I tried to seek, 
Such leaden weight dragg'd these Icarian wings. 
My faithless wand was wavering and weak. 
And slimy toads had trespass'd in our rings — 
The birds refused to sing for me — all things 
Disown'd their old allegiance to our spells ; 
The rude bees prick'd me with their rebel stings ; 
And, when I pass'd, the valley-lily's bells 
Rang out, methought, most melancholy knells. 

XV. 

" And ever on the faint and flagging air 

A doleful spirit with a dreary note 

Cried in my fearful ear, ' Prepare ! prepare ! ' 

Which soon I knew came from a raven's tiJiroat, 

Perch'd on a cypress bough not far remote, — 

A cursed bird, too crafty to be shot, 

That alway cometh with his soot-black coat 

To make hearts dreary : — for he is a blot 

Upon the book of life, as well ye wot ! — 

XVI. 

" Wherefore some while I bribed him to be 

mute. 
With bitter acorns stuffing his foul maw, 



MIDSUMMER FAIRIES. 11 

Which barely I appeased, when some fresh 

bruit 
Startled me all aheap I — rand soon I saw 
The horridest shape that ever raised my av;e,— 
A monstrous giant, very huge and tall. 
Such as in elder times, devoid of law, 
With wicked might grieved the primeval ball, 
And this was sure the deadliest of them all ! 

XVII. 

"Gaunt was he as a wolf of Languedoc, 
With bloody jaws, and frost upon his crown ; 
So from his barren poll one hoary lock 
Over liis wrinkled front fell far adovvn. 
Well nigh to where his frosty brows did frown 
Like jagged icicles at cottage eaves ; 
And for his coronal he wore some brown 
And bristled ears gather'd from Ceres' sheaves, 
Entwined with certain sere and russet leaves. 

XVIII. 

" And lo ! upon a mast rear'd far aloft, 
He bore a very bright and crescent blade, 
The which he waved so dreadfully, and oft, 
In meditative spite, that, sore dismay'd, 
I crept into an acorn-cup for shade ; 
Meanwhile the horrid effigy went by : 
I trow his look was dreadful, for it made 
The trembling birds betake them to the sky, 
For every leaf was lifted by his sigh. 



12 THE PLEA OP THE 



"And ever as lie sigh'd, his foggy breath 
Blurr'd out the landscape like a flight of smoke : 
Thence knew I this was either dreary Death 
Or Time, who leads all creatures to his stroke. 
Ah wretched me ! " — Here, even as she spoke, 
The melancholy Shape came gliding in, 
And lean'd his back against an antique oak. 
Folding his wings, that were so fine and thin, 
They scarce were seen against the Dryad's skin. 

XX. 

Then what a fear seized all the little rout ! 
Look how a flock of panic'd sheep will stare — 
And huddle close — and start — and wheel about, 
Watching the roaming mongrel here and there,— 
So did that sudden Apparition scare 
All close aheap those small affrighted things ; 
Nor sought they now the safety of the air, 
As if some leaden spell withheld their wings ; 
But who can fly that ancientest of Kings ? 

XXI. 

Whom now the Queen, with a forestalling tear 
And previous sigh, beginneth to entreat, 
Bidding him spare, for love, her lieges dear : 
"Alas ! " quoth she, " is there no nodding wheat 
Ripe for thy crooked weapon, and more meet, — 
Or wither'd leaves to ravish from the tree, — 



MIDSUMMER FAIRIES. 13 

Or crumbling battlements for thy defeat? 
Think but what vaunting monuments there be 
Builded in spite and mockery of thee. 



'' fret away the fabric walls of Fame, 
And grind down marble Cassars with the dust : 
Make tombs inscriptionless — raze each high name, 
And waste old armours of renow^n with rust : 
Do all of this, and thy revenge is just : 
Make such decays the trophies of thy prime, 
And check Ambition's overweening lust, 
That dares exterminating war with Time, — 
But we are guiltless of that lofty crime. 

XXIII. 

" Frail feeble sprites ! — the children of a dream I 

Leased on the sufferance of fickle men. 

Like motes dependent on the sunny beam, 

Living but in the sun'^ indulgent ken, 

And when that light withdraws, withdrawing 

then ; — 
So do we flutter in the glance of youth 
And fervid fancy, — and so perish when 
The eye of faith grows aged ; — in sad truth, 
Feeling thy sway, Time ! though not thy tooth 

XXIV. 

*' Where be those old divinities forlorn. 
That dwelt in trees, or haunted in a stream ? 



14 THE TLEA OF THE 

Alas ! their memories are dimm'd and torn. 
Like the remainder tatters of a dream : 
So will it fare with our poor thrones, I deem ; — 
For us the same dark trench Oblivion delves, 
That holds the wastes of every human scheme. 
O spare us then, — and these our pretty elves, 
We soon, alas ! shall perish of ourselves ! " 

XXV. 

Now as she ended, with a sigh, to name 
Those old Olympians, scatter'd by the whirl 
Of fortune's giddy wheel and brought to shame, 
Methought a scornful and malignant curl 
Show'd on the lips of that malicious churl, 
To think what noble havocs he had made ; 
So that I fear'd he all at once would hurl 
The harmless fairies into endless shade, — 
Howbeit he stopp'd awhile to whet his blade. 

XXVI. 

Pity it was to hear the elfins' wail 
Rise up in concert from their mingled dread ; 
Pity it was to see them, all so pale, 
Gaze on the grass as for a dying bed ; — 
But Puck was seated on a spider's thread, 
That hung between two branches of a briar. 
And 'gan to swing and gambol heels o'er head, 
Like any South wark tumbler on a wire, 
For him no present grief could long inspire. 



MIDSUMMER FAIRIES. 15 

XXVII. 

Meanwhile tlie Queen with many piteous drops, 
Falling like tiny sparks full fast and free, 
Bedews a pathway from her throne ; — and stops 
Before the foot of her arch enemy, 
And with her little arms enfolds his knee, 
That shows more gristly from that fair embrace ,' 
But she will ne'er depart. "Alas ! " quoth she, 
" My painful fingers I will here enlace 
Till I have gained your pity for our*race. 

XXVIII. 

" What have we ever done to earn this grudge, 
And hate — (if not too humble for thy hating?) — 
Look o'er our labours and our lives, and judge 
If there be any ills of our creating ; 
For we are very kindly creatures, dating 
With nature's charities still sweet and bland : — 
O think this murder worthy of debating ! "* — 
Herewith she makes a signal with her hand, 
To beckon some one from the Fairy band. 

XXIX. 

Anon I saw one of those elfin things, 
Clad all in white like any chorister, 
Come fluttering forth on his melodious wings, 
That made soft music at each little stir. 
But something louder than a bee's demur 
Before he lights upon a bunch of broom. 



16 THE PLEA OF THE 

And thus 'gan he with Saturn to confer, — 

And his voice was sweet, touch'd with the gloom 

Of that sad theme that argued of his doom ! 

XXX. 

Quoth he, " We make all melodies our care, 
That no false discords may offend the Sun, 
Music's great master — tuning everywhere 
All pastoral sounds and melodies, each one 
Duly to place and season, so that none 
May harshly interfere. We rouse at morn 
The shrill sweet lark ; and when the day is done, 
Hush silent pauses for the bird forlorn. 
That singeth with her breast against a thorn. 

XXXI. 

" We gather in loud choirs the twittering race, 
That make a chorus with their single note ; 
And tend on new-fledged birds in every place, 
That duly they may get their tunes by rote ; 
And oft, like echoes, answ^ering remote. 
We hide in thickets from the feather'd throng. 
And strain in rivalship each throbbing throat, 
Singing in shrill responses all day long, 
Whilst the glad truant listens to our song. 

XXXII. 

*' Wherefore, great King of Years, as thou dost 

love 
The raining music from a morning cloud, 



3IIDSUMMER FAIRIES. 17 

When vanish'd larks are carolling above, 
To M^ake Apollo with their pipings loud ; — - 
If ever thou hast heard in leafy shroud 
The sweet and plaintive Sappho of the dell, 
Show thy sweet mercy on this little crowd, 
And we will muffle up the sheepfold bell 
Whene'er thou listenest to Philomel." 

XXXIII. 

Then Saturn thus : — " Sweet is the merry lark, 
That carols in man's ear so clear and strong ; 
And youth must love to listen in the dark 
That tuneful elegy of Tereus' wrong ; 
But I have heard that ancient strain too long. 
For sweet is sweet but when a little strange, 
And I grow weary for some newer song ; 
For wherefore had I wings, unless to range 
Through all things mutable from change to change ? 

xxxiy. 

" But wouldst thou hear the melodies of Time, 
Listen when sleep and drowsy darkness roll 
Over hush'd cities, and the midnight chime 
Sounds from their hundred clocks, and deep bells 

toll 
Like a last knell over the dead world's soul. 
Saying, Time shall be final of all things. 
Whose late, last voice must elegize the whole, — 
then I clap aloft my brave broad wings, 
And make the wide air tremble while it rings ! " 
VOL. I. 2 



18 THE PLEA OF THE 



XXXV. 

Then next a fair Eve-Fay made meek address, 
Saying, " We be the handmaids of the Spring, 
In sign whereof, May, the quaint broideress. 
Hath wrought her samplers on our gauzy wing. 
We tend upon buds' birth and blossoming. 
And count the leafy tributes that they owe — 
As, so much to the earth — so much to fling 
Jn showers to the brook — so much to go 
In whirlwinds to the clouds that made them grow. 

XXXVI. 

" The pastoral cowslips are our little pets, 
And daisy stars, whose firmament is green ; 
Pansies, and those veil'd nuns, meek violets. 
Sighing to that warm world from which they screen; 
And golden daffodils, pluck'd for May's Queen ; 
And lonely harebells, quaking on the heath ; 
And Hyacinth, long since a fair youth seen. 
Whose tuneful voice, turn'd fragrance in his breath, 
Kiss'd by sad Zephyr, guilty of his death. 

XXXVII. 

" The widow'd primrose weeping to the moon, 
And saffron crocus in whose chalice bright 
A cool libation hoarded for the noon 
Is kept — and she that purifies the light, 
The virgin lily, faithful to her white. 
Whereon Eve wept in Eden for her shame ; 



MIDSUMMER FAIRIES. 10 

And the most dainty rose, Aurora's spright, 
Our every godchild, by whatever name — 
Spare us our lives, for we did nurse the same ! " 

XXXVIII. 

Then that old Mower stamp'd his heel, and struck 
His hurtful scythe against the harmless ground, 
Saying, " Ye foolish imps, when am I stuck 
With gaudy buds, or like a wooer crown'd 
With flow'ry chaplets, save when they are found 
Wither'd? — Whenever have I pluck'd a rose. 
Except to scatter its vain leaves around ? 
For so all gloss of beauty I oppose, 
And bring decay on every flow'r that blows. 

XXXIX. 

" Or when am I so wroth as when I view 
Thfe wanton pride of Summer ; — how she decks 
The birth-day world with blossoms ever new, 
As if Time had not lived, and heap'd great wrecks 
Of years on years ? — then I bravely vex 
And catch the gay Months in their gaudy plight, 
And slay them with the wreaths about their 

necks. 
Like foolish heifers in the holy rite, 
And raise great trophies to my ancient miglit 1' 



Then saith another, " We are kindly things. 
And like her offspring nestle with the dove,- 



20 THE PLEA OF THE 

Witness these hearts embroider 'd on our wings, 
To show our constant patronage of love : — 
We sit at even, in sweet bow'rs above 
Lovers, and shake rich odours on the air, 
To mingle with their sighs ; and still remove 
The startling owl, and bid the bat forbear 
Their privacy, and haunt some other where. 

XLI. 

"And we are near the mother when she sits 
Beside her infant in its wicker bed ; 
And we are in the fairy scene that flits 
Across its tender brain : sweet dreams we shed, 
And whilst the tender little soul is fled 
Away, to sport with our young elves, the while 
We touch the dimpled cheek with roses red, 
And tickle the soft lips until they smile, 
So that their careful parents they beguile. 

XLII. 

" O then, if ever thou hast breathed a vow 
At Love's dear portal, or at pale moon-rise 
Crusli'd the dear curl on a regardful brow 
That did not frown thee from thy honey prize — 
If ever thy sweet son sat on thy thighs, 
And wooed thee from thy careful thoughts within 
To watch the harmless beauty of his eyes, 
Or glad thy fingers on his smooth soft skin. 
For Love's dear sake, let us thy pity win ! " 



MIDSUMMER FAIRIES. 21 



XLIII. 

Then Saturn fiercely thus : — " What joy have I 
In tender babes, that have devour'd mine own, 
Whenever to the light I heard them cry. 
Till foolish Rhea cheated me with stone ? 
Whereon, till now, is my great hunger shown, 
In monstrous dints of my enormous tooth ; 
And, — but the peopled world is too full grown 
For hunger's edge, — I would consume all youth 
At one great meal, without delay or ruth ! 

XLIV. 

" For I am well nigh crazed and wild to hear 
How boastful fathers taunt me with their breed, 
Saying, ' We shall not die nor disappear, 
But in these other selves, ourselves succeed, 
Ev'n as ripe flowers pass into their seed 
Only to be renew'd from prime to prime,' 
All of which boastings I am forced to read, 
Besides a thousand challenges to Time 
Which bragging lovers have compiled in rhyme. 

XLV. 

" Wherefore, when they are sweetly met o' nights, 
There will I steal, and with my hurried hand 
Startle them suddenly from their delights 
Before their next encounter hath been plann'd, 
Eavishing hours in little minutes spann'd ; 
But when they say farewell, and grieve apart. 



22 THE PLEA OF THE 

Then like a leaden statue I will stand, 
Meanwhile their many tears incrust my dart, 
And with a ragged edge cut heart from heart." 

XL VI. 

Then next a merry Woodsman, clad in green, 
Stept vanward from his mates, that idly stood 
Each at his proper ease, as they had been 
Nursed in the liberty of old Sherwood, 
And wore the. livery of Robin Hood, 
Who wont in forest shades to dine and sup, — 
So came this chief right frankly, and made good 
His haunch against his axe, and thus spoke up, 
Doffing his cap, which was an acorn's cup : — 

XLVII. 

" We be small foresters and gay, who tend 
On trees and all their furniture of green. 
Training the young boughs airily to bend. 
And show blue snatches of the sky between ; — 
Or knit more close intricacies, to screen 
Birds' crafty dwellings as may hide them best. 
But most the timid blackbird's — she, that seen, 
Will bear black poisonous berries to her nest. 
Lest man should cage the darlings of her breast. 

XLVIII. 

" We bend each tree in proper attitude. 
And founting willows train in silvery falls ; 
We frame all shady roofs and arches rude, 



MIDSUMiAIER FAIRIES. 23 

And verdant aisles leading to Dryads' halls, 
Or deep recesses where the Echo calls ; — 
"We shape all plumy trees against the sky, 
And carve tall elms' Corinthian capitals, — 
When sometimes, as. our tiny hatchets ply, 
Men say, the tapping woodpecker is nigh. 

XLIX. 

" Sometimes we scoop the squirrel's hollow cell. 
And sometimes carve quaint letters on trees' 

rind. 
That haply some lone musing wight may spell 
Dainty Aminta, — Gentle Rosalind, — 
Or chastest Laura, — sweetly call'd to mind 
In sylvan solitudes, ere he lies down ; — 
And sometimes we enrich gray stems, with twined 
And vagrant ivy, — or rich moss, whose brown 
Burns into gold as the warm sun goes down. 



"And, lastly, for mirth's sake and Christmas 

cheer. 
We bear the seedling berries, for increase, 
To graft the Druid oaks, from year to year, 
Careful that mistletoe may never cease ; — 
Wherefore, if thou dost prize the shady peace 
Of sombre forests, or to see light break 
Through sylvan cloisters, and in spring release 
Thy spirit amongst leaves from careful ake. 
Spare us our lives for the Green Dryad's sake." 



24 THE PLEA OF THE 



LI. 

Then Saturn, with a frown : — " Go forth, and 

fell 
Oak for your coffins, and thenceforth lay by 
Your axes for the rust, and bid farewell 
To all sweet birds, and the blue peeps of sky 
Through tangled branches, for ye shall not spy 
The next green generation of the tree ; 
But hence with the dead leaves, whene'er they 

fly.- 

Which in the bleak air I would rather see. 
Than flights of the most tuneful birds that be. 

LII. 

" For I dislike all prime, and verdant pets, 

Ivy except, that on the aged wall 

Preys with its worm-like roots, and daily frets 

The crumbled tower it seems to league withal. 

King-like, worn down by its own coronal : — 

Neither in forest haunts love I to won, 

Before the golden plumage 'gins to fall. 

And leaves the brown bleak limbs with few leaves 

on, 
Or bare — like Nature in her skeleton. 

LHI. 

-" For then sit I amongst the crooked boughs, 
Wooing dull Memory with kindred sighs ; 
And there in rustling nuptials we espouse. 



MIDSUMMER FAIRIES. 25 

Smit by the sadness in each other's eyes ; — 
But Hope must have green bowers and blue 

skies, 
And must be courted with the gauds of spring ; 
Whilst Youth leans god-like on her lap, and 

cries, 
"What shall we always do, but love and sing ? — 
And Time is reckon'd a discarded thing." 

LIV. 

Here in my dream it made me fret to see 
How Puck, the antic, all this dreary while 
Had blithely jested wdth calamity. 
With mistimed mirth mocking the doleful style 
Of his sad comrades, till it raised my bile 
To see him so reflect their grief aside, 
Turning their solemn looks to half a smile — 
Like a straight stick shown crooked in the tide ; — 
But soon a novel advocate I spied. 

LV. 

Quoth he — " We teach all natures to fulfil 
Their fore-appointed crafts, and instincts meet, — 
The bee's sweet alchemy, — the spider's skill, — 
The pismire's care to garner up his wheat, — 
And rustic masonry to swallows fleet, — 
The lapwing's cunning to preserve her nest, — 
But most, that lesser pelican, the sweet 
And shrilly ruddock, with its bleeding breast, 
Its tender pity of poor babes distrest. 



26 THE PLEA OF THE 



LVI. 

" Sometimes we cast our shapes, and in sleek skins 
Delv^e with the timid mole, that aptly delves 
From our example ; so the spider spins, 
And eke the silk-worm, pattern'd by ourselves : 
Sometimes we travail on the summer shelves 
Of early bees, and busy toils commence, 
Watch'd of wise men, that know not we are elves, 
But gaze and marvel at our stretch of sense, 
And praise our human-like intelligence. 

LVII. 

"Wherefore, by thy delight in that old tale, 
And plaintive dirges the late robins sing, 
What time the leaves are scatter'd by the gale. 
Mindful of that old forest burying ;— 
As thou dost love to watch each tiny thing. 
For whom our craft most curiously contrives, 
If thou hast caught a bee upon the wing, 
To take his honey-bag,— spare us our lives. 
And we will pay the ransom in full hives." 

LVIII. 

" Now by my glass," quoth Time, " ye do offend 
In teaching the brown bees that careful lore, 
And frugal ants, whose millions would have end, 
But they lay up for need a timely store, 
And travail with the seasons evermore ; 
Whereas Great Mammoth long hath pass'd away, 



MIDSUMMER FAIICIES. 

And none but I can tell what hide he wore ; 
Whilst purblind men, the creatures of a day, 
In riddling wonder his great bones survey." 

LIX. 

Then came an elf, right beauteous to behold, 
Whose coat was like a brooklet that the sun 
Hath all embroider'd with its crooked gold, 
It was so quaintly wrought and overrun 
With spangled traceries, — most meet for one 
That was a warden of the pearly streams ; — 
And as he stept out of the shadows dun, 
His jewels sparkled in the pale moon's gleams, 
, And shot into the air their pointed beams. 



Quoth he, — " We bear the gold and silver keys 
Of bubbling springs and fountains, that below 
Course thro' the veiny earth, — which when they 

freeze 
Into hard crysolites, we bid to flow, 
Creeping like subtle snakes, when, as they go, 
We guide their windings to melodious falls, 
At whose soft murmurings, so sweet and low. 
Poets have tuned their smoothest madrigals. 
To sing to ladies in their banquet halls.- 

LXI. 

"And when the hot sun with his steadfast heat 
Parches the river god, — whose dusty urn 



28 THE PLEA OF THE 

Drips miserly, till soon his crystal feet 
Against his pebbly floor wax faint and' burn, 
And languid fish, unpoised, grow sick and yearn,- 
Then scoop we hollows in some sandy nook, 
And little channels dig, wherein we turn 
The thread-worn rivulet, that all forsook 
The Naiad-lily, pining for her brook. 



^' Wherefore, by thy delight in cool green meads, 

With living sapphires daintily inlaid, — 

In all soft songs of waters and their reeds, — 

And all reflections in a streamlet made. 

Haply of thy own love, that, disarray'd, 

Kills the fair lily with a livelier white, — 

By silver trouts upspringing from green shade, 

And winking stars reduplicate at night. 

Spare us, poor ministers to such delight." 

LXIII. 

Howbeit his pleading and his gentle looks 
Moved not the spiteful Shade : — Quoth he, " Your 

taste 
Shoots wide of mine, for I despise the brooks 
And slavish rivulets that run to waste 
In noontide sweats, or, like poor vassals, haste 
To swell the vast dominion of the sea, 
In whose great presence I am held disgraced, 
And neighbour'd with a king that rivals me 
In ancient might and hoary majesty. 



MIDSUMMER FAIRIES. 29 



LXIV. 

•' Whereas I ruled in Chaos, and still keep 
The awful secrets of that ancient dearth, 
Before the briny fountains of the deep 
Brimm'd up the hollow cavities of earth ; — 
I saw each trickling Sea- God at his birth, 
Each pearly Naiad with her oozy locks. 
And infant Titans of enormous girth, 
Whose huge young feet yet stumbled on the 

rocks, 
Stunning the early world with frequent shocks. 

LXV. 

" Where now is Titan, with his cumbrous brood, 
That scared the world ? — By this sharp scythe 

they fell. 
And half the sky was curdled with their blood : 
So have all primal giants sigh'd farewell. 
No Wardens now by sedgy fountains dwell, 
Nor pearly Naiads. All their days are done 
That strove with Time, untimely, to excel ; 
Wherefore I razed their progenies, and none 
But my great shadow intercepts the sun ! " 

LXVI. 

Then saith the timid Fay — " Oh, mighty Time ! 
Well hast thou wrought the cruel Titans' fall. 
For they were stain'd with many a bloody 
crime : 



30 THE PLEA OF THE 

Great giants work great wrongs, — but we are 

small, 
For love goes lowly ; — but Oppressions 's tall. 
And with surpassing strides goes foremost still 
Where love indeed can hardly reach at all ; 
Like a poor dwarf o'erburthen'd with good 

will, 
That labours to efface the tracks of ill. — 

LXVII. 

" Man even strives with Man, but we eschew 

The guilty feud, and all fierce strifes abhor ; 

Nay, we are gentle as sweet heaven's dew. 

Beside the red and horrid drops of war. 

Weeping the cruel hates men battle for. 

Which w^orldly bosoms nourish in our spite : 

For in the gentle breast we ne'er withdraw. 

But only when all love hath taken flight. 

And youth's warm gracious heart is harden'd 

quite. 

Lxvin. 

" So are our gentle natures intertwined 
With sweet humanities, and closely knit 
In kindly sympathy with human kind. 
Witness how we befriend, with elfin wit. 
All hopeless maids and lovers, — nor omit 
Magical succours unto hearts forlorn : — 
We charm man's life, and do not perish it ; — 
So judge us by the helps we show'd this morn, 
To one who held his wretched days in scorn. 



MIDSUMMER FAIRIES. 31 



LXIX. 

" 'Twas nigh sweet Amwell ; — for the Queen had 

task'd 
Our skill to-day amidst the silver Lea, 
Whereon the noontide sun had not yet bask'd ; 
Wherefore some patient man we thought to see, 
Planted in moss-grown rushes to the knee, 
Beside the cloudy margin cold and dim; — 
Ilowbeit no patient fisherman was he 
That cast his sudden shadow from the brim, . 
Making us leave our toils to gaze on him. 



" His face was ashy pale, and leaden care 
Had sunk the levell'd arches of his brow. 
Once bridges for his joyous thoughts to fare 
Over those melancholy springs and slow^, 
That from his piteous eyes began to flow. 
And fell anon into the chilly stream ; 
Which, as his mimick'd image show'd below, 
Wrinkled his face with many a needless seam, 
Making grief sadder in its own esteem. 

LXXI. 

" And lo ! upon the air we saw him stretch 
His passionate arms ; and, in a wayward strain, 
He 'gan to elegize that fellow wretch 
That with mute gestures answer'd him again. 
Saying, ' Poor slave, how long wilt thou remain 



32 THE PLEA OF THE 

Life's sad weak captive in a prison strong, 
Hoping with tears to rust away thy chain, 
In bitter servitude to worldly wrong ? — 
Thou wear'st that mortal livery too long ! ' 

LXXII. 

" This, with more spleenful speeches and some tears, 
When he had spent upon the imaged wave. 
Speedily I convened my elfin peers 
Under the lily-cups, that we might save 
This woful mortal from a wilful grave 
By shrewd diversions of his mind's regret, 
Seeing he was mere melancholy's slave. 
That sank wherever a dark cloud he met, 
And straight was tangled in her secret net. 

LXXIII. 

" Therefore, as still he watch'd the water's flow. 
Daintily we transform'd, and with bright fins 
Came glancing through the gloom ; some from below 
Rose like dim fancies when a dream begins. 
Snatching the light upon their purple skins ; 
Then under the broad leaves made slow retire: 
One like a golden galley bravely wins 
Its radiant course, — another glows like fire, — 
Making that wayward man our pranks admire. 

LXXIV. 

"And so he banish'd thought, and quite forgot 
All contemplation of that wretched face ; 



midsummp:r fairies. 33 

And so we wiled him from that lonely spot 

Along the river's brink ; till, by heaven's grace, 

He met a gentle haunter of the place, 

Full of sweet wisdom gather'd from the brooks, 

Who there discuss'd his melancholy case 

With wholesome texts learn'd from kind nature's 

books. 
Meanwhile he newly trimm'd his lines and hooks." 

LXXV. 

Herewith the Fairy ceased. Quoth Ariel now — 
" Let me remember how I saved a man. 
Whose fatal noose was fasten'd on a bough, 
Intended to abridge his sad life's span ; 
For haply I was by when he began 
His stern soliloquy in life's dispraise, 
And overheard his melancholy plan. 
How he had made a vow to end his days, 
And therefore folio w'd him in all his ways, 

LXXVI. 

" Through brake and tangled copse, for much he 

loathed 
All populous haunts, and roam'd in forests rude, 
To hide himself from man. But I had clothed 
My delicate limbs with plumes, and still pur- 
sued. 
Where only foxes and wild cats intrude, 
Till we were come beside an ancient tree 
Late blasted by a storm. Here he renew'd 

VOL. I. 3 



34 THE PLEA OF THE 

His loud complaints, — choosing that spot to be 
The scene of his last horrid tragedy. 

LXXVII. 

"It was a wild and melancholy glen, 
Made gloomy by tall firs and cypress dark, 
Whose roots, like any bones of buried men, 
Push'd through the rotten sod for fear's remark 
A hundred horrid stems, jagged and stark, 
Wrestled with crooked arms in hideous fray, 
Besides sleek ashes with their dappled bark, 
Like crafty serpents climbing for a prey, 
With many blasted oaks moss-grown and gray. 



" But here upon his final desperate clause 
Suddenly I pronounced so sweet a strain. 
Like a pang'd nightingale it made him pause. 
Till half the frenzy of his grief was slain. 
The sad remainder oozing from his brain 
In timely ecstasies of healing tears, 
Which through his ardent eyes began to drain ; — 
Meanwhile the deadly Fates unclosed their 

shears : — 
So pity me and all ray fated peers ! " 

LXXIX. 

Thus Ariel ended, and was some time hush'd : 
When with the hoary shape a fresh tongue pleads, 
And red as rose the gentle Fairy blusli'd 



MIDSUMMER FAIRIES. OO 

To read the record of her own good deeds : — 
" It chanced," quoth she, " in seeking through the 

meads 
For honeyed cowslips, sweetest in the morn, 
"Whilst yet the buds were hung with dewy beads, 
And Echo answer'd to the huntsman's horn, 
We found a babe left in the swarths forlorn. 

LXXX. 

"A little, sorrowful, deserted thing, 
Begot of love, and yet no love begetting ; 
Guiltless of shame, and yet for shame to wring; 
And too soon banish'd from a motlier's petting, 
To churlish nurture and the Avide world's fretting, 
For alien pity and unnatural care ; — 
Alas ! to see how the cold dew kept wetting 
His childish coats, and dabbled all his hair, 
Like gossamers across his forehead fair. 



"■ His pretty pouting mouth, witless of speech. 
Lay half-way open like a rose-lipp'd shell ; 
And his young cheek was softer than a peach, 
Whereon his tears, for roundness, could not 

dwell, 
But quickly roll'd themselves to pearls, and fell. 
Some on the grass, and some against his hand. 
Or haply wander'd to the dimpled well. 
Which love beside his mouth had sweetly plann'd, 
Yet not for tears, but mirth and smilings bland. 



36 THE PLEA OF THE 



" Pity it was to see those frequent tears 
Falling regardless from his friendless eyes ; 
There was such beauty in those twin blue spheres, 
As any mother's heart might leap to prize ; 
Blue were they, like the zenith of the skies 
Soften'd betwixt two clouds, both clear and mild ; — 
Just touch'd with thought, and yet not over wise, 
They show'd the gentle spirit of a child. 
Not yet by care or any craft defiled. 

LXXXIII. 

" Pity it was to see the ardent sun 
Scorching his helpless limbs — it shone so warm ; 
For kindly shade or shelter he had none, 
Nor mother's gentle breast, come fair or storm. 
Meanwhile I bade my pitying mates transform 
Like grasshoppers, and then, with shrilly cries. 
All round the infant noisily we swarm. 
Haply some passing rustic to advise — 
Whilst providential Heaven our care espies, 

L XXX IV. 

"And sends full soon a tender-hearted hind, 
"Who, wond'ring at our loud unusual note. 
Strays curiously aside, and so doth find 
The orphan child laid in the grass remote, 
And laps the foundling in his russet coat, 
Who thence was nurtured in his kindly cot : — 



midsum:\ier fairies. 37 

But how he prosper'd let proud London quote, 
How wise, how rich, and how renown'd he got, 
And chief of all her citizens, I wot. 

LXXXV. 

" Witness his goodly vessels on the Thames, 
Whose holds were fraught with costly merchan- 
dise, — 
Jewels from Ind, and pearls for courtly dames, 
And gorgeous silks that Samarcand supplies : 
Witness that Royal Bourse he bade arise, 
The ma,rt of merchants from the East and West ; 
Whose slender summit, pointing to the skies, 
Still bears, in token of his grateful breast, 
The tender grasshopper, his chosen crest — 

LXXXVI. 

" The tender grasshopper, his chosen crest, 

That all the summer, with a tuneful wing, 

Makes merry chirpings in its grassy nest, 

Inspirited with dew to leap and sing : — 

So let us also live, eternal King ! 

Partakers of the green and pleasant earth : — 

Pity it is to slay the meanest thing, 

That, like a mote, shines in the smile of mirth : — 

Enough there is of joy's decrease and dearth ! 

LXXXVII. 

*' Enough of pleasure, and delight, and beauty, 
Perish'd and gone, and hasting to decay ; — 



38 THE PLEA OF THE 

Enough to sadden even thee, whose duty 

Or spite it is to havoc and to slay : 

Too many a lovely race razed quite away, 

Hath left large gaps in life and human loving : — 

Here then begin thy cruel war to stay. 

And spare fresh sighs, and tears, and groans, 

reproving 
Thy desolating hand for our removing." 

LXXXVIII. 

Now here I heard a shrill and sudden cry, 
And looking up, I saw the antic Puck 
Grappling with .Time, who clutch'd him hke a fly, 
Yictim of his own sport, — the jester's luck ! 
He, whilst his fellows grieved, poor wight, had 

stuck 
His freakish gauds upon the Ancient's brow. 
And now his ear, and now his beard, would 

pluck ; 
Whereas the angry churl had snatch'd him now. 
Crying, " Thou impish mischief, who art thou ? " 

LXXXIX. 

"Alas ! " quoth Puck, " a little random elf, 
Born in the sport of nature, like a weed, 
For simple sweet enjoyment of myself. 
But for no other purpose, worth, or need ; 
And yet withal of a most happy breed ; 
And there is Robin Goodfellow besides, 
My partner dear in many a prankish deed 



MIDSUMMER FAIRIES. 39 

To make dame Laughter hold her jolly sides, 
Like merry mummers twain on holy tides. 

xc. 
" 'Tis we that bob the angler's idle cork, 
Till e'en the patient man breathes half a curse ; 
We steal the morsel from the gossip's fork, 
And curdling looks with secret straws disperse. 
Or stop the sneezing chanter at mid verse : 
And when an infant's beauty prospers ill, 
We change, some mothers say, the child at 

nurse 
But any graver purpose to fulfil, 
W^e have not wit enough, and scarce the will. 

XCI. 

" We never let the canker melancholy 

To gather on our faces like a rust. 

But gloss our features with some change of 

folly. 
Taking life's fabled miseries on trust. 
But only sorrowing when sorrow must: 
We ruminate no sage's solemn cud. 
But own ourselves a pinch of lively dust 
To frisk upon a wind, — whereas the flood 
Of tears would turn us into heavy mud. 

XCII. 

" Beshrew those sad interpreters of nature, 
Who gloze her lively universal law. 



40 THE PLEA OF THE 

As if she had not form'd our cheerful feature 

To be so tickled with the slightest straw ! 

So let them vex their mumping mouths, and 

draw 
The corners downward, like a wat'ry moon, 
And deal in gusty sighs and rainy flaw — 
We will not woo foul weather all too soon, 
Or nurse November on the lap of June. 

XCIII. 

" For ours are winging sprites, like any bird, 
That shun all stagnant settlements of grief ; 
And even in our rest our hearts are stirr'd, 
Like insects settled on a dancing leaf : — 
This is our small philosophy in brief, 
Which thus to teach hath set me all agape : 
But dost thou relish it ? O hoary chief ! 
Unclasp thy crooked fingers from my nape. 
And I will show thee many a pleasant scrape." 

xciv. 
Then Saturn thus : — shaking his crooked blade 
O'erhead, which made aloft a lightning flash 
In all the fairies' eyes, dismally fray'd! 
His ensuing voice came like the thunder crash — 
Meanwhile the bolt shatters some pine or ash — 
" Thou feeble, wanton, foolish, fickle thing ! 
Whom nought can frighten, sadden, or abash, — 
To hope my solemn countenance to wring 
To idiot smiles ! — but I will prune thy wing ! 



MIDSUMMER FAIRIES. 41 



XCV. 

" Lo ! this most awful handle of my scythe 
Stood once a May-pole, with a flow^ery crown, 
Which rustics danced around, and maidens blithe, 
To wanton pipings ; — but I pluck'd it down. 
And robed the May Queen in a churchyard gown, 
Turning her buds to rosemary and rue ; 
And all their merry minstrelsy did drown, 
And laid each lusty leaper in the dew ; — 
So thou shalt fare — and every jovial crew ! " 

xcvi. 
Here he lets go the struggling imp, to clutch 
His mortal engine with each grisly hand. 
Which frights the elfin progeny so much. 
They huddle in a heap, and trembling stand 
All round Titania, like the queen bee's band, 
With sighs and tears and very shrieks of woe ! — 
Meanwhile, some moving argument I plann'd. 
To make the stern Shade merciful, — when lo ! 
He drops his fatal scythe without a blow ! 

XCVII. 

For, just at need, a timely Apparition 

Steps in between, to bear the awful brunt ; 

Making him change his horrible position. 

To marvel at this comer, brave and blunt, 

That dares Time's irresistible affront, 

Whose strokes have scarr'd even the gods of old; — 



42 THE PLEA OF THE 

Whereas this seem'd a mortal, at mere hunt 
For conejs, lighted bj the moonshine cold, 
Or stalker of stray deer, stealthy and bold. 

XCVIII. 

Who, turning to the small assembled fays, 
Doffs to the lily queen his courteous cap, 
And holds her beauty for a while in gaze. 
With bright eyes kindling at this pleasant hap ; 
And thence upon the fair moon's silver map, 
As if in question of this magic chance. 
Laid like a dream upon the green earth's lap ; 
And then upon old Saturn turns askance. 
Exclaiming, with a glad and kindly glance : — 

XCIX. 

" Oh, these be Fancy's revellers by night ! 
Stealthy companions of the downy moth — 
Diana's motes, that flit in her pale light, 
Shunners of sunbeams in diurnal sloth ; — 
These be the feasters on night's silver cloth, — 
The gnat with shrilly trump is their convener. 
Forth from their flowery chambers, nothing loth, 
With lulling tunes to charm the air serener, 
Or dance upon the grass to make it greener. 

c. 

" These be the pretty genii of the flow'rs, 
Daintily fed with honey and pure dew — 
Midsummer's phantoms in her dreaming hours, 



MIDSUMMER FAIRIES. 43 

King Oberon, and all his merrj crew, 
The darling puppets of romance's view ; 
Fairies, and sprites, and goblin elves we call 

them. 
Famous for patronage of lovers true; — 
No harm they act, neither shall harm befall them. 
So do not thus with crabbed frowns appall them." 

CI. 
O what a ciy was Saturn's then ! — it made 
The fairies quake. " What care I for their pranks, 
However they may lovers choose to aid. 
Or dance their roundelays on flow'ry banks ? — 
Long must they dance before they earn my 

thanks, — 
So step aside, to some far safer spot. 
Whilst with my hungry scythe I mow their ranks, 
And leave them in the sun, like weeds, to rot, 
And with the next day's sun to be forgot." 

CII. 

Anon, he raised afresh his weapon keen ; 
But still the gracious Shade disarm'd his aim. 
Stepping with brave alacrity between. 
And made his sere arm powerless and tame. 
His be perpetual glory, for the shame 
Of hoary Saturn in that grand defeat ! — 
But I must tell, how here Titania came 
With all her kneeling lieges, to entreat 
His kindly succour, in sad tones, but sweet. 



M THE PLEA OP THE 



cm. 
Saying, "Thou seest a wretched queen before 

thee, 
The fading power of a failing land, 
Who for her kingdom kneeleth to implore thee. 
Now menaced by this tyrant's spoiling hand ; 
No one but thee can hopefully withstand 
That crooked blade, he longeth so to lift. 
I pray thee blind him v/ith his own vile sand, 
Which only times all ruins by its drift. 
Or prune his eagle wings that are so swift. 

CIV. 

" Or take him by that sole and grizzled tuft, 
That Imngs upon his bald and barren crown ; 
And we will sing to see him so rebuff 'd, 
And lend our Kttie mights to pull him down, 
And make brave sport of his malicious frown. 
For all his boastful mockery o'er men. 
For thou wast born I know for this renown. 
By my most magical and inward ken. 
That readeth ev'n at Fate's forestalling pen. 

cv. 

" Nay, by the golden lustre of thine eye. 
And by thy brow's most fair and ample span, 
Thought's glorious palace, framed for fancies high, 
And by thy cheek thus passionately wan, 
I know the signs of an immortal man, — 



MIDSUMIUER FAIRIES. 45 

Nature's chief darling, and illustrious mate, 
Destined to foil old Death's oblivious plan, 
And shine untarnish'd by the fogs of Fate, 
Time's famous rival till the final date ! 

CVI. 

" O shield us then from this usurping Time, 
And we will visit thee in moonhght dreams ; 
And teach thee tunes, to wed unto thy rhyme, 
And dance about thee in all midnight gleams, 
Giving thee glimpses of our magic schemes. 
Such as no mortal's eye hath ever seen ; 
And, for thy love to us in our extremes. 
Will ever keep thy chaplet fresh and green, 
Such as no poet's wreath hath ever been ! 

CVII. 

" And we '11 distil thee aromatic dews. 

To charm thy sense, when there shall be no flow'rs ; 

And flavour'd syrups in thy drinks infuse, 

And teach the nightingale to haunt thy bow'rs, 

And with our games divert thy weariest hours, 

With all that elfin wits can e'er devise. 

And, this churl dead, there '11 be no hasting hours 

To rob thee of thy joys, as now joy flies : " — 

Here she was stopp'd by Saturn's furious cries. 

CVIII. 

Whom, therefore, the kind Shade rebukes anew. 
Saying, " Thou haggard Sin, go forth, and scoop 



46 THE PLEA OF THE 

Thy hollow coffin in some churchyard yew, 
Or make th' autumnal flow'rs turn pale, and 

droop; 
Or fell the bearded corn, till gleaners stoop 
Under fat sheaves, — or blast the piny grove ; — 
But here thou shalt not harm this pretty group, 
Whose lives are not so frail and feebly wove, 
But leased on Nature's loveliness and love. 

Cix. 
" 'Tis these that free the small entangled fly. 
Caught in the venom'd spider's crafty snare ; — 
These be the petty surgeons that apply 
The healing balsams to the wounded hare, 
Bedded in bloody fern, no creature's care ! — 
These be providers for the orphan brood, 
Whose tender mother hath been slain in air, 
Quitting with gaping bill her darlings' food, 
Hard by the verge of her domestic wood. 

ex. 

" 'Tis these befriend the timid trembling stag, 
When, with a bursting heart beset with fears, 
He feels his saving speed begin to flag ; 
For then they quench the fatal taint with tears, 
And prompt fresh shifts in his alarum'd ears. 
So piteously they view all bloody morts ; 
Or if the gunner, with his arm, appears. 
Like noisy pyes and jays, with harsh reports. 
They warn the wild fowl of his deadly sports. 



MIDSUMMER FAIRIES. 47 



CXI. 

" For these are kindly ministers of nature, 
To soothe all covert hurts and dumb distress ; 
Pretty they be, and very small of stature, — 
For mercy still consorts with littleness ; — 
Wherefore the sum of good is still the less, 
And mischief grossest in this world of wrong ; — 
So do these charitable dwarfs redress 
The tenfold ravages of giants strong. 
To whom great malice and great might belong. 

CXII. 

" Likewise to them are Poets much beholden 
For secret favours in the midnight glooms ; 
Brave Spenser quaff 'd out of their goblets golden, 
And saw their tables spread of prompt mush- 
rooms. 
And heard their horns of honeysuckle blooms 
Sounding upon the air most soothing soft, 
Like humming bees busy about the brooms, — 
And glanced this fair queen's witchery full oft, 
And in her magic wain soar'd far aloft. 

CXIII. 

" Nay I myself, though mortal, once was nursed 
By fairy gossips, friendly at my birth. 
And in my childish ear glib Mab rehearsed 
Her breezy travels round our planet's girth, 
Telling me wonders of the moon and earth ; 



48 THE PLEA OF THE 

My gramarye at her grave lap I conn'd, 

Where Puck hath been convened to make me 

mirth ; 
I have had from Queen Titania tokens fond, 
And toy'd with Oberon's permitted wand. 

cxiv. 
" With figs and plums and Persian dates they fed 

me, 
And delicate cates after my sunset meal, 
And took me by my childish hand, and led me 
By craggy rocks crested with keeps of steel. 
Whose awful bases deep dark woods conceal. 
Staining some dead lake with their verdant 

dyes : 
And when the West sparkled at Phoebus' wheel. 
With fairy euphrasy they purged mine eyes, 
To let me see their cities in the skies. 

cxv. 

" 'Twas they first school'd ray young imagination 
To take its flights like any new-fledged bird, 
And show'd the span of winged meditation 
Stretch'd wider than things grossly seen or heard. 
With sweet swift Ariel how I soar'd and stirr'd 
The fragrant blooms of spiritual bow'rs ! 
'Twas they endear'd what I have still preferr'd. 
Nature's blest attributes and balmy pow'rs. 
Her hills and vales and brooks, sweet birds and 
flow'rs ! 



MIDSUMMER FAIRIES. 49 



CXVI. 

" Wherefore with all true loyalty and duty 
Will I regard them in my honouring rhyme. 
With love for love, and homages to beauty, 
And magic thoughts gather'd in night's cool 

clime. 
With studious verse trancing the dragon Time, 
Strong as old Merlin's necromantic spells ; 
So these dear monarchs of the summer's prime 
Shall live unstartled by his dreadful yells, 
Till shrill larks warn them to their flowery cells." 

CXVII. 

Look how a poison'd man turns livid black, 
Drugg'd with a cup of deadly hellebore, 
That sets his horrid features all at rack, — 
So seem'd these Avords into the ear to pour 
Of ghastly Saturn, answering with a roar 
Of mortal pain and spite and utmost rage, 
Wherewith his grisly arm he raised once more. 
And bade the cluster'd sinews all engage, 
As if at one fell stroke to wreck an age. 

CXVIII. 

Whereas the blade flash'd on the dinted ground, 
Down through his steadfast foe, yet made no 

scar 
On that immortal Shade, or death-like wound ; 
But Time was long benumb'd, and stood ajar, 
VOL. I. 4 



/ 

50 THE PLEA OF THE 

And then with baffled rage took flight afar, 
To weep his hurt in some Cimmerian gloom, 
Or meaner fames (Hke mine) to mock and 

mar. 
Or sharp his scythe for royal strokes of doom, 
Whetting its edge on some old Csesar's tomb. 

CXIX. 

Howbeit he vanish'd in the forest shade. 
Distantly heard as if some grumbling pard, 
And, like Narcissus, to a sound decay'd ; — 
Meanwhile the fays cluster'd the gracious Bard, 
The darling centre of their dear regard : 
Besides of sundry dances on the green. 
Never was mortal man so brightly starr'd, 
Or won such pretty homages, I ween. 
" Nod to him. Elves !" cries the melodious queen. 

cxx. 

"Nod to him. Elves, and flutter round about 

him. 
And quite inclose him with your pretty crowd, 
And touch him lovingly, for that, without him, 
The silk-worm now had spun our dreary 

shroud ; — 
But he hath all dispersed death's tearful cloud. 
And Time's dread effigy scared quite away : 
Bow to him then, as though to me ye bow'd, 
And his dear wishes prosper and obey 
Wherever love and wit can find a way ! 



MIDSUMMER FAIRIES. ol 



CXXI. 

" 'Noint him with fairy dews of magic savours, 
Shaken from orient buds still pearly wet, 
Roses and spicy pinks, — and, of all favours, 
Plant in his walks the purple violet. 
And meadow-sweet under the hedges set. 
To mingle breaths with dainty eglantine 
And honeysuckles sweet, — nor yet forget 
Some pastoral flowery chaplets to entwine, 
To vie the thoughts about his brow benign ! 

CXXII. 

" Let no wild things astonish him or fear him, 
But tell them all how mild he is of heart, 
Till e'en the timid hares go frankly near him. 
And eke the dappled does, yet never start ; 
Nor shall their fawns into the thickets dart, 
Nor wrens forsake their nests among the leaves, 
Nor speckled thrushes flutter far apart ; — 
But bid the sacred swallow haunt his eaves, 
To guard his roof from lightning and from thieves. 

CXXIII. 

" Or when he goes the nimble squirrel's visitor. 
Let the brown hermit bring his hoarded nuts. 
For, tell him, this is Nature's kind Inquisitor, — 
Though man keeps cautious doors that conscience 

shuts. 
For conscious wrong all curious quest rebuts, — 



52 THE PLEA OF THE 

Nor yet shall bees uncase their jealous stings, 
However he may watch their straw-built huts ; — 
So let him learn the crafts of all small things, 
Which he will hint most aptly when he sings." 

CXXIV. 

Here she leaves off, and with a graceful hand 
Waves thrice three splendid circles round his head ; 
Which, though deserted by the radiant wand. 
Wears still the glory which her waving shed, 
Such as erst crown'd the old Apostle's head. 
To show the thoughts there harbour'd were divine, 
And on immortal contemplations fed : — 
Goodly it was to see that glory shine 
Around a brow so lofty and benign ! — 

cxxv. 

Goodly it was to see the elfin brood 
Contend for Irisses of his gentle hand, 
That had their mortal enemy withstood. 
And stay'd their lives, fast ebbing with the sand. 
Long while this strife engaged the pretty band ; 
But now bold Chanticleer, from farm to farm, 
Challeng'd the dawn creeping o'er eastern land, 
And well the fairies knew that shrill alarm, 
Which sounds the knell of every elfish charm. 

CXXVI. 

And soon the rolling mist, that 'gan arise 
From plashy mead and undiscover'd stream 



MIDSUMMER FAIRIES. 53 

Earth's morning incense to the early skies, 
Crept o'er the failing landscape of my dream. 
Soon faded then the Phantom of my theme — 
A shapeless shade, that fancy disavow'd. 
And shrank to nothing in the mist extreme. 
Then flew Titania, — and her little crowd, 
Like flocking linnets, vanish'd in a cloud. 



HERO AND LEANDER. 

1827. 



TO 

S. T. COLERIDGE. 

It is not with a hope my feeble praise 

Can add one moment's honour to thy own, 

That with thy mighty name I grace these lays ; 

I seek to glorify myself alone : 

For that some precious favour thou hast shown 

To my endeavour in a bygone time, 

And by this token, I would have it known 

Thou art my friend, and friendly to m}'- rhyme ! 

It is my dear ambition now to climb 

Still higher in thy thought, — if my bold pen 

May thrust on contemplations more sublime. — 

But I am thirsty for thy praise, for when 

We gain applauses from the great in name, 

We seem to be partakers of their fame. 



HERO AND LEANDER. 

Oh Bards of old ! what sorrows have ye sung, 
And tragic stories, chronicled in stone, — 
Sad Philomel restored her ravish'd tongue, 
And transform'd Niobe in dumbness shown ; 
Sweet Sappho on her love for ever calls, 
And Hero on the drown'd Leander falls ! 

II. 

Was it that spectacles of sadder plights 
Should make our blisses rehsh the more high ? 
Then all fair dames, and maidens, and true 

knights. 
Whose flourish'd fortunes prosper in Love's eye, 
Weep here, unto a tale of ancient grief. 
Traced from the course of an old bas-relief. 

III. 

There stands Abydos ! — here is Sestos' steep. 
Hard by the gusty margin of the sea, 
Where sprinkling waves continually do leap ; 
And that is where those famous lovers be. 



58 HERO AND LEANDER. 

A builded gloom shot up into the gray, 
As if the first tall watch-tow'r of the day. 

IV. 

Lo ! how the lark soars upward and is gone ; 
Turning a spirit as he nears the sky, 
His voice is heard, though body there is none, 
And rain-like music scatters from on high ; 
But Love would follow with a falcon spite, 
To pluck the minstrel from his dcAvy height. 



For Love hath framed a ditty of regrets, 
Tuned to the hollow sobbings on the shore, 
A vexing sense, that with like music frets, 
And chimes this dismal burthen o'er and o'er, 
Saying, Leander's joys are past and spent. 
Like stars extinguish'd in the firmament. 

VI. 

For ere the golden crevices of morn 

Let in those regal luxuries of light. 

Which all the variable east adorn. 

And hang rich fringes on the skirts of night, 

Leander, weaning from sweet Hero's side, 

Must leave a widow where he found a bride. 

VII. 

Hark ! how the billows beat upon the sand ! 
Like pawing steeds impatient of delay ; 



HERO AND LEANDER. 59 

Meanwhile their rider, hng'ring on the land, 
Dallies with love, and holds farewell at bay 
A too short span, — How tedious slow is grief! 
But parting renders time both sad and brief. 

VIII. 

" Alas (he sigh'd), that this first glimpsing light, 
Which makes the wide world tenderly appear. 
Should be the burning signal for my flight. 
From all the world's best image, which is here ; 
Whose very shadow, in my fond compare, 
Shines far more bright than Beauty's self else- 
where. 

IX. 

Their cheeks are white as blossoms of the dark. 
Whose leaves close up and show the outward 

pale. 
And those fair mirrors where their joys did 

spark, 
All dim and tarnish'd with a dreary veil. 
No more to kindle till the night's return. 
Like stars replenish'd at Joy's golden urn. 

X. 

Ev'n thus they creep into the spectral gray, 
That cramps the landscape in its narrow brim, 
As when two shadows by old Lethe stray. 
He clasping her, and she entwining him ; 
Like trees wind-parted that embrace anon. 
True love so often goes before 'tis gone. 



GO HERO AND LEANDER. 



XI. 

For what rich naerchant but will pause in fear, 
To trust his wealth to the unsafe abyss ? 
So Hero dotes upon her treasure here, 
And sums the loss with many an anxious kiss, 
Whilst her fond eyes grow dizzy in her head, 
Fear aggravating fear with shows of dread. 



She thinks how many have been sunk and 

drown'd, 
And spies their snow-white bones below the 

deep, 
Then calls huge congregated monsters round. 
And plants a rock wherever he would leap ; 
Anon she dwells on a fantastic dream, 
Which she interprets of that fatal stream. 

XTII. 

Saying, " That honey'd fly I saw was thee. 
Which lighted on a water-lily's cup, 
When, lo ! the flow'r, enamour'd of my bee, 
Closed on him suddenly and lock'd him up. 
And he was smother'd in her drenching dew ; 
Therefore this day thy drowning I shall rue." 

XIV. 

But next, remembering her virgin fame, 
'She clips him in her arms and bids him go, 



HERO AND LEANDER. 61 

But seeing him break loose, repents her shame, 
And plucks him back upon her bosom's snow ; 
And tears unfix her iced resolve again, 
As steadfast frosts are thaw'd bj show'rs of rain. 

XV. 

for a type of parting ! — Love to love 
Is like the fond attraction of two spheres, 
Which needs a godlike effort to remove. 
And then sink down their sunny atmospheres. 
In rain and darkness on each ruin'd heart. 
Nor yet their melodies will sound apart. 

XVI. 

So brave Leander sunders from his bride ; 
The wrenching pang disj^arts his soul in twain ; 
Half stays with her, half goes towards the 

tide, — 
And life must ache, until they join again. 
Now wouldst thou know the wideness of the 

wound. 
Mete every step he takes upon the ground. 

XVII. 

And for the agony and bosom-throe. 

Let it be measured by the wide vast air. 

For that is infinite, and so is woe, 

Since parted lovers breathe it everywhere. 

Look how it heaves Leander's labouring chest, 

Panting, at poise, upon a rocky crest ! 



.62 HERO AND LEANDER. 



XVIII. 

■From which he leaps into the scooping brine, 
That shocks his bosom with a double chill ; 
Because, all hours, till the slow sun's decline, 
That cold divorcer will betwixt them still ; 
Wherefore he likens it to Styx' foul tide, 
Where life grows death upon the other side. 

XIX. 

Then sadly he confronts his twofold toil 
Against rude waves and an unwilling mind. 
Wishing, alas ! with the stout rower's toil. 
That like a rower he might gaze behind. 
And watch that lonely statue he hath left 
Ob her bleak summit, weeping and bereft ! 

XX. 

Yet turning oft, he sees her troubled locks 
Pursue him still the furthest that they may ; 
Her marble arms that overstretch the rocks. 
And her pale passion'd hands that seem to pray 
In dumb petition to the gods above : 
Love prays devoutly when it prays for love ! 

XXI. 

Then with deep sighs he blows away the wave, 
That hangs superfluous tears upon his cheek. 
And bans his labour like a hopeless slave, 
That, chain'd in hostile galley, faint and weak. 



HERO AND LEANDER. 63 

Plies on despairing through the restless foam, 
Thoughtful of his lost love, and far-off home. 

XXII. 

The drowsy mist before him chill and dank, 

Like a dull lethargy o'erleans the sea. 

When he rows on against the utter blank, 

Steering as if to dim eternity, — 

Like Love's frail ghost departing Avith the dawn ; 

A. failing shadow in the twihght drawn. 

XXIII. 

And soon is gone, — or nothing but a faint 
And failing image in the eye of thought. 
That mocks his model with an after-paint. 
And stains an atom like the shape she sought ; 
Then with her earnest vows she hopes to fee 
The old and hoary majesty of sea. 

XXIV. 

" King of waves, and brother of high Jove, 
Preserve my sumless venture there afloat ; 
A woman's heart, and its whole wealth of love, 
Are all embark'd upon that little boat ; 
Nay, but two loves, two lives, a double fate, 
A perilous voyage for so dear a freight. 

XXV. 

" If impious mariners be stain'd with crime, 
Shake not in awful rage thy hoary locks ; 



64 HERO AND LEANDER. 

Lay bj thy storms until another time, 
Lest my frail bark be dash'd against the rocks ; 
O rather smooth thy deeps, that he may fly 
Like Love himself, upon a seeming sky ! 

XXVI. 

" Let all thy herded monsters sleep beneath, 
Nor gore him with crook'd tusks, or wreathed 

horns ; 
Let no fierce sharks destroy him with their teeth. 
Nor spine-fish wound him with their venom'd 

thorns ; 
But if he faint, and timely succour lack. 
Let ruthful dolphins rest him on their back. 

XXVII. 

" Let no false dimpling whirlpools suck him in, 
Nor slimy quicksands smother his sweet breath ; 
Let no jagg'd corals tear his tender skin, 
Nor mountain billows bury him in death ; " — 
And with that thought forestalling her own fears, 
She drown'd his painted image in her tears. 

XXVIII. 

By this, the climbing sun, with rest repair'd, 
Look'd through the gold embrasures of the sky, 
And ask'd the drowsy world how she had fared ; — 
The drowsy world shone brighten'd in reply ; 
And smiling off her fogs, his slanting beam 
Spied young Leander in the middle stream. 



HERO AND LEANDER. 65 



XXIX. 

Plis face was pallid, but the hectic morn 
Had hung a lying crimson on his cheeks, 
And slanderous sparkles in his eyes forlorn ; 
So death lies ambush'd in consumptive streaks ; 
But inward grief was writhing o'er its task, 
As heart-sick jesters weep behind the mask. 

XXX. 

He thought of Hero and the lost delight. 
Her last embracings, and the space between ; 
He thought of Hero and the future night. 
Her speechless rapture and enamour'd mien, 
When, lo ! before him, scarce two galleys' space, 
His thought 's confronted with another face ! 

XXXI. 

Her aspect 's like a moon divinely fair, 
But makes the midnight darker that it lies on ; 
'Tis so beclouded with her coal-black hair 
That densely skirts her luminous horizon. 
Making her doubly fair, thus darkly set, 
As marble lies advantaged upon jet. 

XXXII. 

She's all too bright, too argent, and too pale, 
To be a woman ; — but a woman's double, 
Reflected on the wave so faint and frail. 
She tops the billows like an air-blown bubble ; 
VOL. I. 5 



G6 HERO AND LEANDER. 

Or aim creation of a morning dream, 

Fair as the wave-bleach'd lily of the stream. 

XXXIII. 

The very rumour strikes his seeing dead: 
'Great beauty like great fear first stuns the sense : 
He knows not if her lips be blue or red, 
Nor of her eyes can give true evidence : 
Like murder's witness swooning in the court, 
His sight falls senseless by its own report. 

XXXIV. 

Anon resuming, it declares her eyes 
Are tinct with azure, like two crystal wells 
That drink the blue complexion of the skies, 
Or pearls outpeeping from their silvery shells : 
Her polish'd brow, it is an ample plain. 
To lodge vast contemplations of the main. 

XXXV. 

Her lips might corals seem, but corals near. 
Stray through her hair like blossoms on a bower ; 
And o'er the weaker red still domineer. 
And make it pale by tribute to more power ; 
Her rounded cheeks are of still paler hue, 
Touch'd by the bloom of water, tender blue. 

XXXVI. 

Thus he beholds her rocking on the water, 
Under the glossy umbrage of her hair, 



HERO AND LEANDER. 67 

Like pearly Amj)hitrite's fairest daughter, 
Naiad, or Nereid, or Syren fair, 
Mislodging music in her pitiless breast, 
A nightingale within a falcon's nest. 

XXXVII. 

They say there be such maidens in the deep, 
Charming poor mariners, that all too near 
By mortal lullabies fall dead asleep, 
As drowsy men are poison'd through the ear ; 
Therefore Leander's fears begin to urge. 
This snowy swan is come to sing his dirge. 

XXXVIII. 

At which hie falls into a deadly chill, 
And strains his eyes upon her lips apart ; 
Fearing each breath to feel that prelude shrill, 
Pierce through his marrow, like a breath-blown 

dart 
Shot sudden from an Indian's hollow cane, 
With mortal venom fraught, and fiery pain. 

XXXIX. 

Here then, poor wretch, how he begins to crowd 
A thousand thoughts within a pulse's space ; 
There seem'd so brief a pause of life allow'd. 
His mind stretch'd universal, to embrace 
The whole wide world, in an extreme fare- 
well, — 
A moment's musing — but an age to tell. 



68 HERO AND LEANDER. 



XL. 

For there stood Hero, widow'd at a glance, 

The foreseen sum of many a tedious fact. 

Pale cheeks, dim eyes, and wither'd countenance, 

A wasted ruin that no wasting lack'd ; 

Time's tragic consequents ere time began, 

A world of sorrow in a tear-drop's span. 

XLT. 

A moment's thinking is an hour in words, — 
An hour of words is little for some woes ; 
Too little breathing a long life affords, 
For love to paint itself by perfect shows ; 
Then let his love and grief unwrong'd lie dumb, 
Whilst Fear, and that it fears, together come. 

XL II. 

As when the crew% hard by some jutty cape. 
Struck pale and panic'd by the billows' roar, 
Lay by all timely measures of escape, 
And let their bark go driving on the shore ; 
So fray'd Leander, drifting to his wreck. 
Gazing on Scylla, falls upon her neck. 

XLIII. 

For he hath all forgot the swimmer's art. 
The rower's cunning, and the pilot's skill, 
Letting his arms fall down in languid part, 
Sway'd by the wave?, and nothing by his will, 



HERO AND LEANDER. 69 

Till soon he jars against that glossy skin, 
Solid like glass, though seemingly as thin. 

XLIV. 

Lo ! how she startles at the warning shock 
And straightAvay girds him to her radiant breast, 
More like his safe smooth harbour than his rock ; 
Poor wretch, he is so faint and toil-opprest. 
He cannot loose him from his grappling foe. 
Whether for love or hate, she lets not go. 



His eyes are blinded with the sleety brine, 

His ears are deafen'd with the wildering noise ; 

He asks the purpose of her fell design, 

But foamy waves choke up his struggling voice ; 

Under the ponderous sea his body dips, 

And Hero's name dies bubbling on his lips. 

XL VI. 

Look how a man is lower'd to his grave ; 
A yearning hollow in the green earth's lap ; 
So he is sunk into the yawning wave. 
The plunging sea fills up the watery gap ; 
Anon he is all gone, and nothing seen. 
But likeness of green turf and hillocks green. 



And where he swam, the constant sun lies sleeping, 
Over the verdant plain that makes his bed ; 



70 HERO AND LEANDER. 

And all the noisy waves go freshly leaping, 
Like gamesome boys over the churchyard dead 
The light in vain keeps looking for his face, 
Now screaming sea-fowl settle in his place. 

XLVIII. 

Yet weep and watch for him, though all in 

vain ! 
Ye moaning billows, seek him as ye wander ! 
Ye gazing sunbeams, look for him again ! 
Ye winds, grow hoarse with asking for Lean- 

der! 
Ye did but spare him for more cruel rape, 
Sea-storm and ruin in a female shape ! 

XLIX. 

She says 'tis love hath bribed her to this deed, 
The glancing of his eyes did so bewitch her. 
O bootless theft ! unprofitable meed ! 
Love's treasury is sack'd, but she no richer ; 
The sparkles of his eyes are cold and dead. 
And all his golden looks are turn'd to lead ! 



She holds the casket, but her simple hand 
Hath spill'd its dearest jewel by the way ; 
She hath life's empty garment at command, 
But her own death lies covert in the prey ; 
As if a thief should steal a tainted vest, 
Some dead man's spoil, and sicken of his pest. 



HERO AND LEANDER. 71 



Now she compels him to her deeps below, 
Hiding his face beneath her plenteous hair, 
Which jealously she shakes all round her brow, 
For dread of envy, though no eyes are there 
Bi;t seals', and all brute tenants of the deep, 
Which heedless through the wave their journeys 
keep. 

LII. 

Down and still downward through the dusky green 
She bore him, murmuring with joyous haste 
In too rash ignorance, as he had been 
Born to the texture of that watery waste ; 
That which she breathed and sigh'd, the emerald 

wave, 
How could her pleasant home become his grave ! 

LIII. 

Down and still downward through the dusky 

green 
She bore her treasure, with a face too nigh 
To mark how life was alter'd in its mien, 
Or how the light grew torpid in his eye. 
Or how his pearly breath, unprison'd there, 
Flew up to join the universal air. 

LIV. 

She could not miss the throbbings of his heart, 
Whilst her own pulse so wanton'd in its joy; 



72 HERO AND LEANDER. 

She could not guess he struggled to depart, 
And when he strove no more the hapless 

boy! 
She read his mortal stillness for content, 
Feeling no fear where only love was meant. 

LV. 

Soon she alights upon her ocean -floor, 

And straight unyokes her arms from her fair 

prize ; 
Then on his lovely face begins to pore, 
As if to glut her soul ; — her hungry eyes 
Have grown so jealous of her arms' delight ; 
It seems, she hath no other sense but sight. 

LVI. 

But sad marvel I most bitter strange ! 
What dismal magic makes his cheek so pale ? 
Why will he not embrace, — why not exchange 
Her kindly kisses ; — wherefore not exhale 
Some odorous message from life's ruby gates, 
Where she his first sweet embassy awaits ? 

LVII. 

Her eyes, poor watchers, fix'd upon his looks, 
Are grappled with a wonder near to grief. 
As one, who pores on undecipher'd books. 
Strains vain surmise, and dodges with belief; 
So she keeps gazing with a mazy thought, 
Framing a thousand doubts that end in nought. 



HERO AND LEANDEK. 



LVIII. 

Too stern inscription for a page so young, 
The dark translation of his look was death ! 
But death was written in an alien tongue, 
And learning was not by to give it breath ; 
So one deep woe sleeps buried in its seal, 
Which Time, untimely, hasteth to reveal. 



Meanwhile she sits unconscious of her hap. 
Nursing Death's marble effigy, which there 
With heavy head lies pillow'd in her lap, 
And elbows all unhinged; — his sleeking hair 
Creeps o'er her knees, and settles where his hand 
Leans with lax fingers crook'd against the sand ; 

LX. 

And there lies spread in many an oozy trail, 
Like glossy weeds hung from a chalky base, 
That shows no whiter than his brow is pale ; 
So soon the wintry death had bleach'd his face 
Into cold marble, — with blue chilly shades, 
Showing wherein the freezy blood pervades. 

LXI. 

And o'er his steadfast cheek a furrow'd pain 
Hath set, and stiffen'd like a storm in ice. 
Showing by drooping lines the deadly strain 
Of mortal anguish ; — yet you might gaze twice 



74 HERO AND LEANDER. 

Ere Death it seem'd, and not his cousin, Sleep, 
That through those creviced lids did underpeep. 



But all that tender bloom about his eyes, 

Is Death's own vi'lets, which his utmost rite 

It is to scatter when the red rose dies ; 

For blue is chilly, and akin to white : 

Also he leaves some tinges on his lips, 

Which he hath kiss'd with such cold frosty nips. 

LXIII. 

"Surely," quoth she, "he sleeps, the senseless 

thing, 
Oppress'd and faint with toiling in the stream ! " 
Therefore she will not mar his rest, but sing 
So low, her tune shall mingle with his dream ; 
Meanwhile, her hly fingers tasks to twine 
His uncrispt locks uncurling in the brine. 

LXIV. 

" O lovely boy ! " — thus she attuned her voice, — 
"Welcome, thrice welcome, to a sea-maid's 

home, 
My love-mate thou shalt be, and true heart's 

choice ; 
How have I long'd such a twin-self should 

come, — 
A lonely thing, till this sweet chance befell, 
My heart kept sighing like a hollow shell. 



HERO AND LEANDER. 



LXV. 

" Here tliou shalt live, beneath this secret dome, 

An ocean-bow'r ; defended by the shade 

Of quiet waters, a cool emerald gloom 

To lap thee all about. Nay, be not fray'd, 

Those are but shady fishes that sail by 

Like antic clouds across my liquid sky ! 

LXVI. 

" Look how the sunbeam burns upon their scales, 
And shows rich glimpses of their Tyrian skins ; 
They flash small lightnings from their vigoi'ous 

tails, 
And winking stars are kindled at their fins ; 
These shall divert thee in thy weariest mood. 
And seek thy hand for gamesomeness and food. 

LXVII. 

" Lo ! those green pretty leaves with tassel bells, 
My flow'rets those, that never pine for drowth ; 
Myself did plant them in the dappled shells, 
That drink the wave with such a rosy mouth, — 
Pearls wouldst thou have beside ? crystals to 

shine ? 
I had such treasures once, — now they are thine. 

LXVIII. 

" Now, lay thine ear against this golden sand, 
And thou shalt hear the music of the sea, 



76 HERO AND LEANDER. 

Those hollow tunes it plays against the land, — 
Is 't not a rich and wondrous melody ? 
I have lain hours, and fancied in its tone 
I heard the languages of ages gone ! 

LXIX. 

" I too can sing when it shall please thy choice, 
And breathe soft tunes through a melodious 

shell. 
Though heretofore I have but set my voice 
To some long sighs, grief harmonized, to tell 
How desolate I fared ; — but this sweet change 
Will add new notes of gladness to my range ! 

LXX. 

" Or bid me speak, and I will tell thee tales. 
Which I have framed out of the noise of waves ; 
Ere now, I have communed with senseless gales, 
And held vain colloquies with barren caves ; 
But I could talk to thee whole days and days, 
Only to word my love a thousand ways. 

LXXI. 

" But if thy lips will bless me with their speech, 
Then ope, sweet oracles ! and I '11 be mute ; 
I was born ignorant for thee to teach, 
Nay all love's lore to thy dear looks impute ; 
Then ope thine eyes, fair teachers, by whose 

light 
I saw to give away my heart aright ! " 



HERO AND LEANDER. 



LXXII. 

But cold and deaf the sullen creature lies, 
Over her knees, and with concealing clay, 
Like hoarding Avarice locks up his eyes, 
And leaves her world impoverish'd of day ; 
Then at his cruel lips she bends to plead. 
But there the door is closed against her need. 

LXXIII. 

Surely he sleeps, — so her false wits infer ! 
Alas ! poor sluggard, ne'er to wake again ! 
Surely he sleeps, yet without any stir 
That might denote a vision in his brain ; 
Or if he does not sleep, he feigns too long. 
Twice she hath reach'd the ending of her song. 

LXXIV. 

Therefore 'tis time she tells him to uncover 
Those radiant jesters, and disperse her fears, 
Whereby her April face is shaded over, 
Like rainy clouds just ripe for showering tears ; 
Nay, if he will not wake, so poor she gets, 
Herself must rob those lock'd up cabinets. 

LXXV. 

With that she stoops above his brow, and bids 
Her busy hands forsake his tangled hair, 
And tenderly lift up those coffer-lids, 
That she may gaze upon the jewels there, 



/8 HERO AND LEANDER. 

Like babes that pluck an early bud apart, 
To know the dainty colour of its heart. 

LXXVI. 

Now, picture one, soft creeping to a bed, 
Who slowly parts the fringe-hung canopies, 
And then starts back to find the sleeper dead ; 
So she looks in on his uncover'd eyes. 
And seeing all within so drear and dark, 
Her own bright soul dies in her like a spark. 



Backward she falls, like a pale prophetess, 
Under the swoon of holy divination : 
And what had all surpass'd her simple guess, 
She now resolves in this dark revelation ; 
Death's very mystery, — oblivious death ; — 
Long sleep, — deep night, and an entranced breath. 

LXXVIII. 

Yet life, though wounded sore, not wholly slain, 
Merely obscured, and not extinguish'd, lies ; 
Her breath that stood at ebb, soon flows again, 
Heaving her hollow breast with heavy sighs, 
And light comes in and kindles up the gloom, 
To light her spirit from its transient tomb. 



Then like the sun, awaken'd at new dawn. 
With pale bewilder'd face she peers about, 



HERO AND LEANDEB. 79 

And spies blurr'd images obscurely drawn, 
Uncertain shadows in a haze of doubt ; 
But her true grief grows shapely by degrees, 
A perish'd creature lying on her knees. 

LXXX. 

And now she knows how that old Murther 

preys, 
Whose quarry on her lap lies newly slain : 
How he roams all abroad and grimly slays, 
Like a lean tiger in Love's own domain ; 
Parting fond mates, — and oft in flowery lawns 
Bereaves mild mothers of their milky fawns. 

LXXXI. 

O too dear knowledge ! O pernicious earning ! 
P^oul curse engraven upon beauty's page ! 
Ev'n now the sorrow of that deadly learning 
Ploughs up her brow, like an untimely age. 
And on her cheek stamps verdict of death's 

truth 
By canker blights upon the bud of youth ! 

LXXXII. 

For as unwholesome winds decay the leaf, 
So her cheeks' rose is perish'd by her sighs. 
And withers in the sickly breath of grief ; 
Whilst unacquainted rheum bedims her eyes. 
Tears, virgin tears, the first that ever leapt 
From those young lids, now plentifully wept. 



80 HERO AND LEANDER. 

LXXXIII. 

Whence being shed, the liquid crystalline 
Drops straightway down, refusing to partake 
In gross admixture with the baser brine, 
But shinks and hardens into pearls opaque, 
Hereafter to be worn on arms and ears ; 
So one maid's trophy is another's tears ! 

LXXXIV. 

" O foul Arch- Shadow, thou old cloud of Night, 
(Thus in her frenzy she began to wail,) 
Thou blank oblivion — blotter out of light, 
Life's ruthless murderer, and dear love's bale ! 
Why hast thou left thy havoc incomplete. 
Leaving me here, and slaying the more sweet ? 

LXXXV. 

" Lo ! what a lovely ruin thou hast made ! 
Alas ! alas ! thou hast no eyes to see. 
And blindly slew'st him in misguided shade. 
Would I had lent my doting sense to thee ! 
But now I turn to thee, a willing mark. 
Thine arrows miss me in the aimless dark ! 

LXXXVI. 

" doubly cruel ! — twice misdoing spite, 
But I will guide thee with my helping eyes. 
Or walk the wide world through, devoid of sight, 
Yet thou shalt know me by my many sighs. 



HERO AND LEANDER. 81 

Nay, then thou should'st have spared my rose, 

false Death, 
And known Love's flow'r by smelling his sweet 

breath ; 

LXXXVII. 

" Or, when thy furious rage was round him 

dealing, 
Love should have grown from touching of his 

skin ; 
But like cold marble thou art all unfeeling, 
And hast no ruddy springs of warmth within, 
And being but a shape of freezing bone. 
Thy touching only turn'd my love to stone ! 

LXXXVIII. 

"And here, alas ! he lies across my knees, 
With cheeks still colder than the stilly wave, 
The light beneath his eyelids seems to freeze ; 
Here then, since Love is dead and lacks a 

grave, 
come and dig it in my sad heart's core — 
That wound will bring a balsam for its sore ! 

LXXXIX. 

" For art thou not a sleep where sense of ill 
Lies stingless, like a sense benumb'd with cold, 
Healing all hurts only with sleep's good-will ? 
So shall I slumber, and perchance behold 
My living love in dreams, — O happy night, 
That lets me company his banish'd spright ! 

VOL. I. 6 



82 HERO AND LEANDER. 

xc. 

" poppy Death ! — sweet poisoner of sleep ; 
Where shall I seek for thee, oblivious drug, 
That I may steep thee in my drink, and creep 
Out of life's coil ? Look, Idol ! how I hug 
Thy dainty image in this strict embrace. 
And kiss this clay-cold model of thy face ! 

xcr. 
" Put out, put out these sun-consuming lamps, 
I do but read my sorrows by their shine ; 
O come and quench them w^ith thy oozy damps. 
And let my darkness intermix with thine ; 
Since love is blinded, wherefore should I see ? 
Now love is death, — death will be love to me ! 

XCII. 

"Away, away, this vain complaining breath, 
It does but stir the troubles that I weep ; 
Let it be hush'd and quieted, sweet Death ; 
The wind must settle ere the wave can sleep, — 
Since love is silent I would fain be mute ; 
Death, be gracious to my dying suit ! " 

XCIII. 

Thus far she pleads, but pleading nought avails 

her. 
For Death, her sullen burthen, deigns no 

heed ; 



HERO AND LEANDER. 83 

Then with dumb craving arms, since darkness 

fails her, 
She prays to heaven's fair light, as if her need 
Inspired her there were Gods to pity pain, 
Or end it, — but she lifts her arms in vain ! 

XCIV. 

Poor gilded Grief ! the subtle light by this 
With mazy gold creeps through her watery mine, 
And, diving downward through the green abyss, 
Lights up her palace with an amber shine ; 
There, falling on her arms, — the crystal skin 
Reveals the ruby tide that fares within. 

xcv. 
Look how the fulsome beam would hang a glory 
On her dark hair, but the dark hairs repel it ; 
Look how the perjured glow suborns a story 
On her pale lips, but lips refuse to tell it ; 
Grief will not swerve from grief, however told 
On coral lips, or character'd in gold ; 

xcvi. 

Or else, thou maid! safe anchor'd on Love's 

neck. 
Listing the hapless doom of young Leander, 
Thou would'st not shed a tear for that old wreck, 
Sitting secure where no wild surges wander ; 
Whereas the woe moves on with tragic pace, 
And shows its sad reflection in thy face. 



84 HERO AND LEANDER. 

XCVII. 

Thus having travell'd on, and track'd the tale, 
Xiike the due course of an old bas-relief, 
Where Tragedy pursues her progress pale. 
Brood here awhile upon that sea-maid's grief, 
And take a deeper imprint from the frieze 
'Of that young Fate, with Death upon her knees,^ 

XCVIII. 

Then whilst -the melancholy muse withal 
IResumes her music in a sadder tone, 
Meanw^hile the sunbeam strikes upon the wall, 
vConeeive that lovely siren to live on, 
Ev'n as Hope whisper'd, the Promethean light 
Would kindle up the dead Leander's spright. 

xcix. 

" 'Tis light," she says, " that feeds the glittering 

stars. 
And those were stars set in his heavenly brow ; 
But this salt cloud, this cold sea-vapour, mars 
Their radiant breathing, and obscures them 

now; 
Therefore I '11 lay him in the clear blue air, 
And see how these dull orbs will kindl6 there." 

c. 
Swiftly as dolphins glide, or swifter yet, 
With dead Leander in her fond arms' fold, 



HERO AND LEANDER. 85 

She cleaves the meshes of that radiant net, 
The sun hath twined above of liquid gold, 
Nor slacks till on the margin of the land 
She lays his body on the glowing sand. 

CI. 

There, like a pearly waif, just past the reach 
Of foamy billows he lies cast. Just then. 
Some listless fishers, straying down the beach. 
Spy out this wonder. Thence the curious 

men, 
Low crouching, creep into a thicket brake, 
And watch her doings till their rude hearts ache. 

CII. 

First she begins to chafe him till she faints. 
Then falls upon his mouth with kisses many, 
And sometimes pauses in her own complaints 
To list his breathing, but there is not any, — 
Then looks into his eyes where no light dwells ; 
Light makes no pictures in such muddy wells. 

CHI. 

The hot sun parches his discover'd eyes, 
The hot sun beats on his discolour'd limbs, 
The sand is oozy whereupon he lies. 
Soiling his fairness ; — then away she swims. 
Meaning to gather him a daintier bed. 
Plucking the cool fresh weeds, brown, green, and 
red. 



86 HERO AND LEANDER. 

CIV. 

But, sirnple-witted thief, while she dives under, 
Another robs her of her amorous theft ; 
The ambush'd fishermen creep forth to plunder, 
And steal the unwatch'd treasure she has left ; 
Only his void impression dints the sands ; 
Leander is purloin'd by stealthy hands ! 

cv. 

Lo ! how she shudders off the beaded wave ! 
Like Grief all over tears, and senseless falls, 
His void imprint seems hollo w'd for her grave ; 
Then, rising on her knees, looks round and calls 
On Hero ! Hero ! having learn'd this name 
Of his last breath, she calls him by the same. 

CVI. 
Then with her frantic hands she rends her hairs, 
And casts them forth, sad keepsakes to the wind, 
As if in plucking those she pluck'd her cares ; 
But grief lies deeper, and remains behind 
Like a barb'd arrow, rankling in her brain. 
Turning her very thoughts to throbs of pain. 

CVII. 

Anon her tangled locks are left alone. 
And down upon the sand she meekly sits, 
Hard by the foam, as humble as a stone, 
Like an enchanted maid beside her wits 



HERO AND LEA.NDER. 87 

That ponders with a look serene and tragic, 
Stunn'd by the mighty mystery of magic. 

CVIII. 

Or think of Ariadne's utter trance, 

Crazed by the flight of that disloyal traitor, 

Who left her gazing on the green expanse 

That swallow'd up his track, — yet this would mate 

Ev'n in the cloudy summit of her woe, [her. 

When o'er the far sea-brim she saw him go. 

Cix. 
For even so she bows, and bends her gaze 
O'er the eternal waste, as if to sum 
Its waves by weary thousands all her days. 
Dismally doom'd ! meanwhile the billows come. 
And coldly dabble with her quiet feet. 
Like any bleaching stones they wont to greet. 

ex. 

And thence into her lap have boldly sprung. 

Washing her weedy tresses to and fro, 

That round her crouching knees have darkly hung 

But she sits careless of waves' ebb and flow. 

Like a lone beacon on a desert coast. 

Showing where all her hope was wreck'd and lost. 

CXI. 

Yet whether in the sea or vaulted sky. 
She knoweth not her love's abrupt resort, 



88 HERO AND LEANDER. 

So like a shape of dreams he left her eye, 

Winking with doubt. Meanwhile, the churls' re- 
port 

Has throng'd the beach with many a curious 
face. 

That peeps upon her from its hiding place. 

CXII. 

And here a head, and there a brow half seen, 
Dodges behind a rock. Here on his hands, 
A mariner his crumpled cheeks doth lean 
Over a rugged crest. Another stands. 
Holding his harmful arrow^ at the head. 
Still check'd by human caution and strange dread. 

CXIII. 

One stops his ears, — another close beholder 
Whispers unto the next his grave surmise ; 
This crouches down, — and just above his shoulder, 
A woman's pity saddens in her eyes. 
And prompts her to befriend that lonely grief, 
With all sweet helps of sisterly relief 

cxiv. 
And down the sunny beach she paces slowly. 
With many doubtful pauses by the way ; 
Grief hath an influence so hush'd and holy, — 
Making her twice attempt, ere she can lay 
Her hand upon that sea-maid's shoulder white, 
Which makes her startle up in wild affright. 



HEKO AND LEANDER. 89 



CXV. 

And, like a seal, she leaps into the wave 
That drowns the shrill remainder of her scream ; 
Anon the sea fills up the watery cave, 
And seals her exit with a foamy seam, — 
Leaving those baffled gazers on the beach, 
Turning in uncouth wonder each to each. 

cxvi. 
Some watch, some call, some see her head emerge, 
Wherever a brown weed falls through the foam ; 
Some point to white eruptions of the surge : 
But she is vanish'd to her shady home, 
Under the deep, inscrutable, — and there 
Weeps in a midnight made of her own hair. 

CXVII. 

Now here, the sighing winds, before unheard, 
Forth from their cloudy caves begin to blow, 
Till all the surface of the deep is stirr'd, 
Like to the panting grief it hides below ; 
And heaven is cover'd \vith a stormy rack, 
Soiling the waters with its inky black. 

CXYIII. 

The screaming fowl resigns her finny prey, 
And labours shoreward with a bending wing, 
Kowing against the wind her toilsome way ; 
Meanwhile, the curling billows chafe, and fling 



90 HEKO AND LEAXDER. 

Their dewy frost still further on the stones, 
That answer to the wind with hollow groans. 

CXIX. 

And here and there a fisher's far-off bark 
Flies with the sun's last glimpse upon its sail, 
Like a bright flame amid the waters dark, 
Watch'd with the hope and fear of maidens pale ; 
And anxious mothers that upturn their brows, 
Freighting the gusty wind with frequent vows, 

cxx. 

For that the horrid deep has no sure track 
To guide love safe into his homely haven. 
And lo ! the storm grows blacker in its wrath. 
O'er the dark billow brooding like a raven. 
That bodes of death and widow's sorrowing, 
Under the dusty covert of his wing. 

cxxi. 
And so day ended. But no vesper spark 
Hung forth its heavenly sign ; but sheets of flame 
Play'd round the savage features of the dark, 
Making night horrible. That night, there came 
A weeping maiden to high Sestos' steep, 
And tore her hair and gazed upon the deep. 

CXXTI. 

And waved aloft her bright and ruddy torch, 
Whose flame the boastful wind so rudely fann'd, 



HERO AND LEANDER. 91 

That oft it would recoil, and basely scorch 
The tender covert of her sheltering hand ; 
Which yet, for love's dear sake, disdain'd re- 
tire, 
And, like a glorying martyr, braved the fire. 

CXXIII. 

For that was love's own sign and beacon guide 
Across the Hellespont's wide weary space, 
Wherein he nightly struggled with the tide ; 
Look what a red it forges on her face. 
As if she blush'd at holding such a light, 
Ev'n in the unseen presence of the night ! 

cxxiv. 
Whereas her tragic cheek is truly pale. 
And colder than the rude and ruffian air 
That howls into her ear a horrid tale 
Of storm, and wreck, and uttermost despair, 
Saying, " Leander floats amid the surge. 
And those are dismal waves that sing his dirge." 

cxxv. 
And hark! — a grieving voice, trembling and 

faint. 
Blends with the hollow sobbings of the sea ; 
Like the sad music of a siren's plaint, 
But shriller than Leander's voice should be. 
Unless the wintry death had changed its tone, — 
Wherefore she thinks she hears his spirit moan. 



92 HERO AND LEANDER. 

CXXVI. 

For now, upon each brief and breathless pause, 
Made by the raging winds, it plainly calls 
On Hero ! Hero ! — whereupon she draws 
Close to the dizzy brink, that ne'er appalls 
Her brave and constant spirit to recoil. 
However the wild billows toss and toil. 

CXXVII. 

" Oh ! dost thou live under the deep deep sea ? 
I thought such love as thine could never die ; 
If thou hast gain'd an immortality 
From the kind pitying sea-god, so will I ; 
And this false cruel tide that used to sever 
Our hearts, shall be our common home for ever ! 

CXXVIII. 

" There we will sit and sport upon one billow, 
And sing our ocean ditties all the day. 
And lie together on the same green pillow. 
That curls above us with its dewy spray ; 
And ever in one presence live and dwell. 
Like two twin pearls within the selfsame shell." 

CXXIX. 

One moment then, upon the dizzy verge 

She stands ; — with face upturn'd against the sky ; 

A moment more, upon the foamy surge 

She gazes, with a calm despairing eye ; 



HERO AND LEANDER. 93 

Feeling that awful pause of blood and breath 
"Which life endures when it confronts with death ; — 

cxxx. 

Then from the giddy steep she madly springs, 
Grasping her maiden robes, that vainly kept 
Panting abroad, like unavailing wings, 
To save her from her death. — The sea-maid wept, 
And in a crystal cave her corse enshrined ; 
No meaner sepulchre should Hero find ! 



LYCUS, THE CENTAUR. 

1827. ■ 



TO 



J. H. REYNOLDS, ESQ. 

My dear Reynolds, 

You will remember "Lycus." — It was written in 
the pleasant spring-time of our friendship, and I am glad to 
maintain that association, by connecting your name with the 
Poem. It will gratify me to find that you regard it with the 
old partiality for the writings of each other, which prevailed 
in those days. For my own sake, I must regret that your 
pen goes now into far other records than those which used to 
delight me. 

Your true Friend and Brother, 

T. Hood, 



LYCUS, THE CENTAUR. 

FROM AN UNROLLED MANUSCRIPT OF APOLLONIUS 
CURIUS. 

THE AKGUMENT. 

Lycus, detained by Circe in her magical dominion, is beloved 
by a Water Nymph, who, desiring to render him immortal, 
has recourse to the Sorceress. Circe gives her an incanta- 
tion to pronounce, which should turn Lycus into a horse; 
but the horrible effect of the charm causing her to break 
off in the midst, he becomes a Centaur. 

Who hath ever been hired and bound by a 

spell 
To wander, foredoom'd, in that circle of hell 
Where Witchery works with her will like a god. 
Works more than the wonders of time at a nod, — 
At a word, — at a touch, — at a flash of the eye. 
But each form is a cheat, and each sound is a 

lie, 
Things born of a wish — to endure for a thought. 
Or last for long ages — to vanish to nought. 
Or put on new semblance ? Jove, I had given 
The throne of a kingdom to know if that heaven, 
VOL. I. ' 7 



98 LTCUS, THE CENTAUR. 

And the earth and its streams were of Circe, or 

whether 
They kept the world's birth-day and brighten'd 

together ! 
For I loved them in terror, and constantly dreaded 
That the earth where I trod, and the cave where 

I bedded, 
The face I might dote on, should live out the 

lease 
Of the charm that created, and suddenly cease : 
And I gave me to slumber, as if from one dream 
To another — each horrid — and drank of the 

stream 
Like a first taste of blood, lest as water I quaff 'd 
Swift poison, and never should breathe from the 

draught, — 
Such drink as her own monarch husband drain'd 

up 
When he pledged her, and Fate closed his eyes 

in the cup. 
And I pluck'd of the fruit with held breath, and a 

fear 
That the branch would start back and scream out 

in my ear ; 
For once, at my suppering, I pluck'd in the dusk 
An apple, juice-gushing and fragrant of musk ; 
But by daylight my fingers were crimson'd with 

gore. 
And the half-eaten fragment was flesh at the 

core; 



LYCUS, THE CENTAUR. 09 

And once — only once — for the love of its blush, 
I broke a bloom bough, but there came such a 

gush 
On my hand, that it ftiinted away in weak fright, 
While the leaf-hidden woodpecker shriek'd at the 

sight ; 
And oh ! such an agony thrill'd in that note, 
That mj' soul, startling up, beat its wings in my 

throat, 
As it long'd to be free of a body whose hand 
"Was doom'd to work torments a Fury had plann'd ! 

There I stood without stir, yet how willing to flee, 
As if rooted and horror-turn'd into a tree, — 
Oh ! for innocent death, — and to suddenly Vv-in it, 
I drank of the stream, but no poison was in it ; 
I plunged in its waters, but ere I could sink. 
Some invisible fate pull'd me back to the brink ; 
I sprang from the rock, from its pinnacle height, 
But fell on the grass with a grassho^oper's flight ; 
1 ran at my fears — they were fears and no more. 
For the bear would not mangle my limbs, nor the 

boar. 
But moan'd, — all their brutalized flesh could not 

smother 
The horrible truth, — we were kin to each other ! 

They were mournfully gentle, and group'd for 
relief, 
All foes in their skin, but all friends in their grief: 



100 LYCUS, THE CENTAUR. 

The leopard was there, — babj-mild in its feature ; 
And the tiger, black barr'd, with the gaze of a 

creature 
Tiiat knew gentle pity ; the bristle-back'd boar, 
His innocent tusks stain'd with mulberry gore ; 
And the laughing hyena — but laughing no more ; 
And the snake, not with magical orbs to devise 
Strange death, but with woman's attraction of 

eyes ; 
The tall ugly ape, that still bore a dim shine 
Through his hairy eclipse of a manhood divine ; 
And the elephant stately, with more than its 

reason, 
How thoughtful in sadness ! but this is no season 
To reckon them up from the lag-bellied toad 
To the mammoth, whose sobs shook his ponderous 

load. 
There were woes of all shapes, wretched forms, 

when I came. 
That hung down their heads with a human-like 

shame ; 
The elephant hid in the boughs, and the bear 
Shed over his eyes the dark veil of his hair ; 
And the womanly soul turning sick with dis- 
gust, 
Tried to vomit herself from her serpentine crusi; ; 
While all groan'd their groans into one at their 

lot. 
As I brought them the image of what they were 

not. 



LYCUS, THE CENTAUR. 101 

Then rose a wild sound of the human voice 

choakii^ 
Through vile brutal organs — low tremulous 

croaking ; 
Cries swallow'd abruptly — deep animal tones 
Attuned to strange passion, and fuU-utter'd 

groans ; 
All shuddering weaker, till hush'd in a pause 
Of tongues in mute motion and wide-yawning jaws; 
And I guess'd that those horrors were meant to 

tell o'er 
The tale of their woes ; but the silence told more 
That writhed on their tongues ; and I knelt on 

the sod, 
And pray'd with my voice to the cloud-stirring 

God, 
For the sad congregation of supplicants there. 
That upturn'd to his heaven brute faces of prayer; 
And 1 ceased, and they utter'd a moaning so deep, 
That I wept for my heart-ease,— but they could 

not weep, 
And gazed with red eyeballs, all wistfully dry, 
At the comfort of tears in a stag's human eye. 
Then I motion'd them round, and, to soothe their 

distress, 
I caress'd, and they bent them to meet my caress, 
Their necks to my arm, and their heads to my 

palm, 
And with poor grateful eyes sufFer'd meekly and 

calm 



102 LYCUS, THE CENTAUR. 

Those tokens of kindness, withheld by hard 

fate 
From returns that might chill the warm pity to 

hate ; 
So they passively bow'd — save the serpent, that 

leapt 
To my breast like a sister, and pressingly crept 
In embrace of my neck, and with close kisses 

blister'd 
My lips in rash love, — then drew backward, and 

glister'd 
Her eyes in my face, and loud hissing affright, 
Dropt down, and swift started away from my 

sight ! 

This sorrow was theirs, but thrice wretched my 

lot, 
Turn'd brute in my soul, though my body was 

not 
When I tied from the sorrow of womanly faces. 
That shrouded their woe in the shade of lone 

places. 
And dash'd off bright tears, till their fingers were 

wet. 
And then wiped their lids with long tresses of 

jet: 
But I fled — though they stretch'd out their hands, 

all entangled 
With hair, and blood-stain'd of the breasts they 

had mangled, — 



LYCUS, THE CENTAUR. 103 

Though they call'd — and perchance but to ask, 

had I seen 
Their loves, or to tell the vile wrongs that had 

been : 
But I stay'd not to hear, lest the story should hold 
Some hell-form of words, some enchantment once 

told. 
Might translate me in flesh to a brute ; and I 

dreaded 
To gaze on their charms, lest my faith should be 

wedded 
With some pity, — and love in that pity per- 
chance — 
To a thing not all lovely ; for once at a glance 
Methought, where one sat, I descried a bright 

wonder 
That flow'd like a long silver rivulet under 
The long fenny grass, with so lovely a breast. 
Could it be a snake-tail made the charm of the 

rest ? 

So I roam'd in that circle of horrors, and Fear 
Walk'd with me, by hills, and in valleys, and 

near 
Cluster'd trees for their gloom — not to sheltor 

from heat — 
But lest a brute-shadow should grow at my feet ; 
And besides that full oft in the sunshiny place, 
Dark shadows would gather like clouds on its 

face. 



104 LYCUS, THE CENTAUR. 

In the horrible likeness of demons, (that none 
Could see, like invisible flames in the sun ;) 
But grew to one monster that seized on the light, 
Like the dragon that strangles the moon in the 

night ; 
Fierce sphinxes, long serpents, and asps of the 

South ; 
Wild birds of huge beak, and all horrors that 

drouth 
Engenders of slime in the land of the pest. 
Vile shapes without shape, and foul bats of the 

West, 
Bringing Night on their wings ; and the bodies 

wherein 
Great Brahma imprisons the spirits of sin. 
Many-handed, that blent in one phantom of fight 
Like a Titan, and threatfully warr'd with the 

light; 
I have heard the wild shriek that gave signal to 

close. 
When they rush'd on that shadowy Python of 

foes, 
That met with sharp beaks and wide gaping of 

jaws. 
With flappings of wings, and fierce grasping of 

claws. 
And whirls of long tails : — I have seen the quick 

flutter 
Of fragments dissever'd, — and necks stretch'd to 

utter 



LYCUS, THE CENTAUR. 105 

Long screamings of pain, — the swift motion of 

blows, 
And wrestling of arms — to the flight at the close, 
When the dust of the earth startled upward in 

rings, 
And flew on the whirlwind that follow'd their 

wings. 

Thus they fled — not forgotten — but often to 

grow 
Like fears in my eyes, when I walk'd to and fro 
In the shadows, and felt from some beings unseen 
The warm touch of kisses, but clean or unclean 
I knew not, nor whether the love I had won 
Was of heaven or hell — till one day in the sun, 
Li its very noon-blaze, I could fancy a thing 
Of beauty, but faint as the cloud-mirrors fling 
On the gaze of the shepherd that watches the 

sky, 
Half-seen and half-dream'd in the soul of his eye. 
And when in my musings I gazed on the stream, 
In motionless trances of thought, there would seem 
A face like that face, looking upward through 

mine ; 
With its eyes full of love, and the dim-drowned 

shine 
Of limbs and fair garments, like clouds in that 

blue 
Serene : — there I stood for long hours but to 

view 



106 LYCUS, THE CENTAUR. 

Those fond earnest eyes that were ever uplifted 
Towards me, and wink'd as the water-weed drifted 
Between ; but the fish knew that presence, and 

plied 
Their long curvy tails, and swift darted aside. 

There I gazed for lost time, and forgot all the 

things 
That once had been wonders — the fishes with 

wings. 
And the glimmer of magnified eyes that look'd up 
From the glooms of the bottom like pearls in a cup, 
And the huge endless serpent of silvery gleam, 
Slow winding along like a tide in the stream. 
Some maid of the waters, some Naiad, melhought 
Held me dear in the pearl of her eye — and I 

brought 
My wish to that fancy ; and often I dash'd 
My limbs in the water, and suddenly splash'd 
The cool drops around me, yet clung to the brink, 
Chill'd by watery fears, how that Beauty might 

sink 
With my life in her arms to her garden, and 

bind me 
With its long tangled grasses, or cruelly wind me 
In some eddy to hum out my life in her ear, 
Like a spider-caught bee, — and in aid of that fear 
Came the tardy remembrance — Oh falsest of 

men! 
Why was not that beauty remember'd till then ? 



LYCUS, THE CENTAUR. 107 

My love, my safe love, who.-e glad life would have 

run 
Into mine — like a drop — that our fate might be 

one, 
That now, even now, — may-be, — clasp'd in a 

dream, 
That form which I gave to some jilt of the stream, 
And gazed with fond eyes that her tears tried to 

smother 
On a mock of those eyes that I gave to another ! 

Then I rose from the stream, but the eyes of 

my mind, 
Still full of the tempter, kept gazing behind 
On her crystalline face, while I painfully leapt 
To the bank, and shook off the curst waters, and 

wept 
With my brow in the reeds ; and the reeds to my ear 
Bow'd, bent by no wind, and in whispers of fear. 
Growing small with large secrets, foretold me of 

one 
That loved me, — but oh to fly from her, and shun 
Her love like a pest — though her love was as true 
To mine as her stream to the heavenly blue ; 
For why should I love her with love that would 

bring 
All misfortune, like Hate, on so joyous a thing ? 
Because of her rival, — even Her w^hose witch-face 
I had slighted, and therefore was doom'd in that 

place 



108 LYCUS, THE CENTAUR. 

To roam, and had roam'd, where all horrors grew 

rank, 
Nine days ere I wept with my brow on that 

bank ; 
Her name be not named, but her spite would not 

fail 
To our love like a blight ; and they told me the tale 
Of Scylla, and Picus, imprison'd to speak 
His shrill-screaming woe through a woodpecker's 

beak. 

Then they ceased — I had heard as the voice of 

my star 
That told me the truth of my fortunes — thus far 
I had read of my sorrow, and lay in the hush 
Of deep meditation, — when lo ! a light crush 
Of the reeds, and I turn'd and look'd round in the 

night 
Of new sunshine, and saw, as I sipp'd of the light 
Narrow-winking, the realized nymph of the stream, 
Rising up from the wave with the bend and the 

gleam 
Of a fountain, and o'er her white arms she kept 

throwing 
Bright torrents of hair, that went flowing and 

flowing 
In falls to her feet, and the blue waters roll'd 
Down her limbs like a garment, in many a fold, 
Sun-spangled, gold-broider'd, and fled far behind, 
Like an infinite train. So she came and reclined 



LYCUS, THE CENTAUR. 109 

In the reeds, and I hunger'd to see her unseal 
The buds of her eyes that would ope and reveal 
The blue that was m them ; and they oped and 

she raised 
Two orbs of pure crystal, and timidly gazed 
With her eyes on my eyes ; but their colour and 

shine 
Was of that wdiich they look'd on, and mostly of 

mine — 
For she loved me, — except when she blush'd, and 

they sank. 
Shame-humbled, to number the stones on the bank. 
Or her play-idle fingers, while lisping she told me 
How she put on her veil, and in love to behold me 
Would wing through the sun till she fainted away- 
Like a mist, and then flew^ to her waters and lay 
In love-patience long hours, and sore dazzled her 

eyes 
In watching for mine 'gainst the midsummer skies. 
But now they w^ere heal'd, — my heart, it still 

dances 
When I think of the charm of her changeable 

glances, 
And my image how small when it sank in the deep 
Of her eyes where her soul was, — Alas ! now they 

weep. 
And none knoweth where. In what stream do 

her eyes 
Shed invisible tears? Who beholds where her 

sio:hs 



110 LYCUS, THE CENTAUR. 

Flow in eddies, or sees the ascent of the leaf 
She has pluck'd with her tresses ? Who listens 

her grief 
Like a far fall of waters, or hears where her feet 
Grow emphatic among the loose pebbles, and beat 
Them together ? Ah ! surely her flowers float 

adown ■ 
To the sea unaccepted, and little ones drown 
For need of her mercy, — even he whose twin- 
brother 
Will miss him for ever ; and the sorrowful mother 
Imploreth in vain for his body to kiss 
And cling to, all dripping and cold as it is. 
Because that soft pity is lost in hard pain ! 
We loved, — how we loved! — for I thought not 

again 
Of the woes that were whisper'd like fears in that 

place 
If I gave me to beauty. Her face was the face 
Far away, and her eyes were the eyes that were 

drown'd 
For my absence, — her arms were the arms that 

sought round. 
And clasp'd me to nought ; for I gazed and became 
Only true to my falsehood, and had but one name 
For two loves, and call'd ever on JEgle, sweet 

maid 
Of the sky-loving waters, — and was not afraid 
Of the sight of her skin ; — for it never could be, 
Her beauty and love were misfortunes to me ! 



LYCUS, THE CENTAUR. Ill 

Thus our bliss had endured for a time-shorten'd 

space, 
Like a day made of three, and the smile of her 

face 
Had been with me for joy, — when she told me 

indeed 
Her love was self-task'd with a work that would 

need 
Some short hours, for in truth 'twas the veriest pity 
Our love should not last, and then sang me a ditty, 
Of one with warm lips that should love her, and 

love her 
When suns were burnt dim and long ages past 

over. 
So she fled with her voice, and I patiently nested 
My limbs in the reeds, in still quiet, and rested 
Till my thoughts grew extinct, and I sank in a 

sleep 
Of dreams, — ^but their meaning was hidden too 

deep 
To be read what their woe was ; — ^but still it was 

woe 
That was writ on all faces that swam to and fro 
In that river of night; — and the gaze of their eyes 
Was sad, — and the bend of their brows, — and their 

cries 
Were seen, but I heard not. The warm touch 

of tears 
Travell'd down my cold cheeks, and I shook till 

my fears 



112 LYCUS, THE CENTAUR. 

Awaked me, and lo ! I was coucli'd in a bower, 
The growth of long summers rear'd up in an hour ! 
Then I said, in the fear of my dream, I will fly 
From this magic, but could not, because that my 

eye 
Grew love-idle among the rich blooms ; and the 

earth 
Held me down with its coolness of touch, and the 

mirth 
Of some bird was above me, — who, even in fear, 
Would startle the thrush? and methought there 

diew near 
A form as of ^gle, — but it was not the face 
Hope made, and I knew the witch-Queen of that 

place. 
Even Circe the Cruel, that came like a Death 
Which I fear'd, and yet fled not, for want of my 

breath. 
There was thought in her face, and her eyes were 

not raised 
From the grass at her foot, but I saw, as I gazed, 
Her spite — and her countenance changed with her 

mind 
As she plann'd how to thrall me with beauty, and 

bind 
My soul to her charms, — and her long tresses 

play'd 
From shade into shine and from shine into shade, 
Like a day in mid-autumn, — first fair, O how fair ! 
With long snaky locks of the adder-black hair 



LYCUS, THE CENTAUR. 113 

That clung round her neck, — those dark locks that 

I prize, 
For the sake of a maid that once loved me with 

eyes 
Of that fathomless hue, — but they changed as they 

rolled 
And brighten'd, and suddenly blazed into gold 
That she comb'd into flames, and the locks that 

fell down 
Turn'd dark as they fell, but I slighted their 

brown, 
Nor loved, till I saw the light ringlets shed wild, 
That innocence wears when she is but a child ; 
And her eyes, — Oh I ne'er had been witch'd with 

their shine. 
Had they been any other, my ^gle, than thine ! 

Then I gave me to magic, and gazed till I 

madden'd 
In the full of their light, — but I sadden'd and 

sadden'd 
The deeper I look'd, — till I sank on the snow 
Of her bosom, a thing made of terror and woe. 
And answer'd its throb with the shudder of fears. 
And hid my cold eyes from her eyes with my tears, 
And strain'd her white arms with the still languid 

weight 
Of a fainting distress. There she sat like the Fate 
That is nurse unto Death, and bent over in shame 
To hide me from her — the true JEgle — that came 

VOL. I. 8 



114 LYCUS, THE CENTAUR. 

With the words on her lips the false witch had 

foregiven 
To make me immortal — for now I was even 
At the portals of Death, who but waited the 

hush 
Of world-sounds in mj ear to cry welcome, and 

rush 
With my soul to the banks of his black-flowing 

river. 
Oh would it had flown from my body for ever, 
Ere I listen'd those words, when I felt with a 

start, 
The life-blood rush back in one throb to my 

heart. 
And saw the pale lips where the rest of that 

spell 
Had perish'd in horror — and heard the farewell 
Of that voice that was drown'd in the dash of the 

stream ! 
How fain had I follow'd, and plunged with that 

scream 
Into death, but my being indignantly lagg'd 
Through the brutalized flesh that I painfully 

dragg'd 
Behind me : — " Circe ! mother of spite ! 
Speak the last of that curse ! and imprison me 

quite 
In the husk of a brute, — that no pity may name 
The man that I was, — that no kindred may 

claim 



LYCUS, THE CENTAUR. 115 

The monster I am ! Let me utterly be 
Brute-buried, and Nature's dishonour with me 
Uninscribed ! " — But she listen'd my prayer, that 

was praise 
To her malice, with smiles, and advised me to 

gaze 
On the river for love, — and perchance she would 

make 
In pity a maid without eyes for my sake, 
And she left me like Scorn. Then I ask'd of the 

wave, 
What monster I was, and it trembled and gave 
The true shape of my grief, and I turn'd with my 

face 
From all waters for ever, and fled through that 

place, 
Till with horror more strong than all ma^ic I 

pass'd 
Its bounds, and the world was before me at last. 

There I wander'd in sorrow, and shunn'd the 
abodes 
Of men, that stood up in the likeness of Gkjds, 
But I saw from afar the warm shine of the sun 
On their cities, where man was a million, not 

one ; 
And I saw the white smoke of their altars ascend- 
ing, 
That show'd where the hearts of the many were 
blending, 



116 LTCUS, THE CENTAUR. 

And the wind in my face brought shrill voices 

that came 
From the trumpets that gather'd whole bands in 

one fame 
As a chorus of man, — and they stream'd from the 

gates 
Like a dusky libation pour'd out to the Fates. 
But at times there were gentler processions of 

peace 
That I watch'd with my soul in my eyes till their 

cease, 
There were women ! there men ! but to me a 

third sex 
I saw them all dots — yet I loved them as specks : 
And oft to assuage a sad yearning of eyes 
I stole near the city, but stole covert-wise 
Like a wild beast of love, and perchance to be 

smitten 
By some hand that 1 rather had wept on than 

bitten ! 
Oh, I once had a haunt near a cot where a mother 
Daily sat in the shade with her child, and would 

smother 
Its eyelids in kisses, and then in its sleep 
Sang dreams in its ear of its manhood, while deej) 
In a thicket of willows I gazed o'er the brooks 
That murmur'd between us and kiss'd them with 

looks ; 
But the willows unbosom'd their secret, and never 
I return 'd to a spot I had startled for ever, 



LTCUS, THE CENTAUR. 117 

Though I oft long'd to know, but could ask it of 

none, 
Was the mother still fair, and how big was her 

son ? 

For the haunters of fields they all shunn'd me 

by flight. 
The men in their horror, the women in fright ; 
None ever remain'd save a child once that sported 
Among the wild bluebells, and playfully courted 
The breeze ; and beside him a speckled snake 

lay 
Tight strangled, because it had hiss'd him away 
From the flower at his finger ; he rose and drew 

near 
Like a Son of Immortals, one born to no fear. 
But with strength of black locks and with eyes 

azure bright 
To grow to large manhood of merciful might. 
He came, with his face of bold wonder, to feel, 
The hair of my side, and to lift up my heel. 
And question'd my face with wide eyes ; but when 

under 
My lids he saw tears, — for I wept at his wonder, 
He stroked me, and utter'd such kindliness then, 
That the once love of women, the friendship of 

men 
In past sorrow, no kindness e'er came like a 

kiss 
On my heart in its desolate day such as this ! 



118 LYCUS, THE CENTAUR. 

And I yearn'd at liis cheeks in my love, and down 

bent. 
And lifted him up in mj arms with intent 
To kiss him, — but he cruel-kindly, alas ! 
Held out to my lips a pluck'd handful of grass! 
Then I dropt him in horror, but felt as I fled 
The stone he indignantly hurl'd at my head. 
That dissever'd my ear, — but I felt not, whose 

fate 
Was to meet more distress in his love than his 

hate ! 

Thus I wander'd, companion'd of grief and 

forlorn. 
Till I wish'd for that land where my being was 

born, 
But what was that land with its love, where my 

home 
Was self-shut against me ; for why should I come 
Like an after-distress to my gray-bearded father. 
With a blight to the last of his sight? — let him 

rather 
Lament for me dead, and shed tears in the urn 
Where I was not, and still in fond memory turn 
To liis son even such as he left him. Oh, how 
Could I walk with the youth once my fellows, but 

now 
Like Gods to my humbled estate ? — or how bear 
The steeds once the pride of my eyes and the 

care 



LYCUS, THE CENTAUR. 119 

Of my hands? Then I turn'd me self-banish'd, 

and came 
Into Thessaly here, where I met with the same 
As myself. I have heard how they met by a 

stream 
In games, and were suddenly changed by a scream 
That made wretches of many, as she roll'd her 

wild eyes 
Against heaven, and so vanish'd. — The gentle and 

wise 
Lose their thoughts in deep studies, and others 

their ill 
In the mirth of mankind where they mingle them 

still. 



THE TWO PEACOCKS OF BEDFONT. 



Alas ! that breathing Vanity should go 

Where Pride is buried, — like its very ghost, 

Uprisen from the n'lked bones below, 
In novel flesh, clad in the silent boast 

Of gaudy silk that flutters to and fro. 
Shedding its chilling superstition most 

On young and ignorant natures — as it wont 

To haunt the peaceful churchyard of Bedfont ! 



II. 

Each Sabbath morning, at the hour of prayer, . 

Behold two maidens, up the quiet green 
Shining, far distant, in the summer air 

That flaunts their dewy robes and breathes 
between 
Their downy plumes, — sailing as if they were 

Two far-oflf ships, — until they brush between 
The churchyard's humble walls, and watch and 

wait 
On either side of the wide open'd gate. 



THE TWO PEACOCKS OF BEDFONT. 121 
III. 

And there they stand — with haughty necks before 
God's holy house, that points towards the 
skies — 

Frowning rehictant duty from the poor, 

And tempting homage from unthoughtful eyes : 

And Youth looks lingering from the temple door, 
Breathing its wishes in unfruitful sighs, 

With pouting lips, — forgetful of the grace. 

Of health, and smiles, on the heart-conscious 
face ; — 

IV. 

Because that AYealth, which has no bliss beside, 
May wear the happiness of rich attire ; 

And those two sisters, in their silly pride, 

May change the soul's warm glances for the 
fire 

Of lifeless diamonds ; — and for health denied, — 
With art, that blushes at itself, inspire 

Their languid cheeks — and flourish in a glory 

That has no life in life, nor after-story. 

V. 

The aged priest goes shaking his gray hair 
In meekest censuring, and turns his eye 

Earthward in grief, and heavenward in pray'r, 
And sighs, and clasps his hands, and passes by. 

Good-hearted man ! what sullen soul would wear 
Thy sorrow for a garb, and constantly 



122 THE TWO PEACOCKS OF BEDFONT. 

Put on thy censure, that might win the praise 
Of one so gray in goodness and in days ? 

VI. 

Also the solemn clerk partakes the shame 
Of this ungodly shine of human pride, 

And sadly blends his reverence and blame 
In one grave bow, and passes with a stride 

Iro.patient : — many a red-hooded dame 

Turns her pain'd head, but not her glance, 
aside 

From wanton dress, and marvels o'er again, 

That heaven hath no wet judgments for the vain. 



" I have a lily in the bloom at home," 

Quoth one, " and by the blessed Sabbath day 
I '11 pluck my lily in its pride, and come 

And read a lesson upon vain array ; — 
And when stiif silks are rustling up, and some 
Give place, I'll shake it in proud eyes and 
say- 
Making my reverence, — ' Ladies, an you please, 
King Solomon 's not half so fine as these.' " 

VIII. 

Then her meek partner, who has nearly run 
His earthly course, — "Nay, Goody, let your 
text 
Grow in the garden. — We have only one — 



THE TWO PEACOCKS OF BEDFONT. l'2o 

Who knows that these dim eyes may see the 
next ? 
Summer will come again, and summer sun, 

And lilies too, — but I were sorely vext 
To mar my garden, and cut short the blow 
Of the last lily I may live to grow." 

IX. 

" The last ! " quoth she, " and though the last it 
were — 

Lo ! those two wantons, where they stand so 
proud 
With waving plumes, and jewels in their hair, 

And painted cheeks, like Dagons to be bow'd 
And curtsey'd to ! — last Sabbath after pray'r, 

I heard the little Tomkins ask aloud 
If they were angels — but I made him know 
God's bright ones better, with a bitter blow ! " 

X. 

So speaking, they pursue the pebbly walk 
That leads to the white jDorch the Sunday 
throng. 

Hand-coupled urchins in restrained talk, 

And anxious pedagogue that chastens wrong, 

And posied churchwarden with solemn stalk, 
And gold-bedizen'd beadle flames along, 

And gentle peasant clad in buff and green, 

Like a meek cowslip in the spring serene ; 



124 THE TWO PEACOCKS OF BEDFONT. 



XI. 

And blushing maiden — modestly array'd 

In spotless white, — still conscious of the glass ; 

And she, the lonely widow, that hath made 
A sable covenant with grief, — alas ! 

She veils her tears under the deep, deep shade, 
While the poor kindly-hearted, as they pass. 

Bend to unclouded childhood, and caress 

Her boy, — so rosy ! — and so fatherless ! 

XII. 

Thus, as good Christians ought, they all draw 
near 

The fair white temple, to the timely call 
Of pleasant bells that tremble in the ear. — 

Now the last frock, and scarlet hood, and shawl 
Fade into dusk, in the dim atmosphere 

Of the low porch, and heav'n has won them 
all, 
— Saving those two, that turn aside and pass, 
In velvet blossom, where all flesh is grass. 

xiii. 

Ah me ! to see their silken manors trail'd 
In purple luxuries — with restless gold, — 

Flaunting the grass where widowhood has wail'd 
In blotted black, — over the heapy mould 

Panting wave-wantonly ! They never quail'd 
How the warm vanity abused the cold ; 



THE TWO TEA COCKS OF BEDFONT. 123 

Nor saw the solemn faces of the gone 
Sadly uplooking through transparent stone : 

XIV. 

But swept their dwellings with unquiet light, 
Shocking the awful presence of the dead ; 

Where gracious natures would their eyes benight, 
Nor wear their being with a lip too red. 

Nor move too rudelj in the summer bright 
Of sun, but put staid sorrow in their tread, 

Meting it into steps, with inward breath, 

In very pity to bereaved death. 

XV. 

Now in the church, time-sober'd minds resign 
To solemn pray'r, and the loud chaunted 
hymn, — 

With glowing picturings of joys divine 

Painting the mistlight where the roof is dim ; 

But youth looks upward to the window shine. 
Warming with rose and purple and the swim 

Of gold, as if thought-tinted by the stains 

Of gorgeous light through many-colour'd panes ; 

XVI. 

Soiling the virgin snow wherein God hath 
Enrobed his angels, — and with absent eyes 

Hearing of Heav'n, and its directed path, 

Thoughtful of slippers, — and the glorious skies 

Clouding with satin, — till the preacher's wrath 



126 THE TWO PEACOCKS OF BEDFONT. 

Consumes his pity, and he glows, and cries 
With a deep voice that trembles in its might, 
And earnest eyes grown eloquent in light : 



" Oh, that the vacant eye would learn to look 
On very beauty, and the heart embrace 

True loveliness, and from this holy book 

Drink the w^arm-breathing tenderness and 
grace 

Of love indeed ! Oh, that the young soul took 
Its virgin passion from the glorious face 

Of fair religion, and address'd its strife, 

To win the riches of eternal life ! 

XVIII. 

" Doth the vain heart love glory that is none, 
And the poor excellence of vain attire ? 

Oh go, and drown your eyes against the sun, 
The visible ruler of the starry quire, 

Till boiling gold in giddy eddies run, 

Dazzlino- the brain with orbs of livino; fire ; 

And the faint soul down darkens into ni^ht. 

And dies a burning martyrdom to light. 



'&" 



XIX. 

" Oh go, and gaze, — when the low winds of ev'n 

Breathe hymns, and Nature's many forests nod 
Their gold-crown'd heads ; and the rich blooms 
of heav'n 



THE TWO PEACOCKS OF BEDFONT. 127 

Sun-ripen'd give their blushes u^d to God ; 
And mountain-rocks and cloudy steeps are riv'n 

By founts of fire, as smitten by the rod 
Of heavenly Moses, — that your thirsty sense 
May quench its longings of magnificence ! 

XX. 

" Yet suns shall perish — stars shall fade away — 
Day into darkness — darkness into death — 

Death into silence ; the warm light of day, 

The blooms of summer, the rich glowing breath 

Of even — all shall wither and decay. 

Like the frail furniture of dreams beneath 

The touch of morn — or bubbles of rich dyes 

That break and vanish in the aching eyes." 

XXI. 

They hear, soul-blushing, and repentant shed 
Unwholesome thoughts in wholesome tears, and 
pour 

Their sin to earth, — and with low drooping head 
Receive the solemn blessing, and implore 

Its grace — then soberly with chasten'd tread, 
They meekly press towards the gusty door, 

With humbled eyes that go to graze upon 

The lowly grass — like him of Babylon. 

XXII. 

The lowly grass ! — water-constant mind ! 
Fast-ebbing holiness ! — soon-fading grace 



128 THE TWO PEACOCKS OF BEDFONT. 

Of serious thought, as if the gushing wind 

Through the low porch had wash'd it from the face 

For ever ! — How they lift their eyes to find 
Old vanities ! — Pride wins the very place 

Of meekness, like a bird, and flutters now 

With idle wings on the curl-conscious brow ! 

XXIII. 

And lo ! with eager looks they seek the way 
Of old temptation at the lowly gate ; 

To feast on feathers, and on vain array, 

And painted cheeks, and the rich glistering state 

Of jewel-sprinkled locks. — But where are they, 
The graceless haughty ones that used to wait 

With lofty neck, and nods, and stiffen'd eye ? — 

None challenge the old homage bending by. 

XXIV. 

In vain they look for the ungracious bloom 
Of rich apparel where it giow'd before, — 

For Vanity has faded all to gloom. 

And lofty Pride has stiffen'd to the core. 

For impious Life to tremble at its doom, — 
Set for a warning token evermore, 

Whereon, as now, the giddy and the wise 

Shall gaze with lifted hands and wond'ring eyes. 

XXV. 

The aged priest goes on each sabbath morn. 
But shakes not sorrow under his gray hair ; 



THE TWO PEACOCKS OF BEDFONT. 129 

The solemn clerk goes lavender'd and shorn, 
Nor stoops his back to the ungodly pair ; — 

And ancient lips that pucker'd up in scorn, 

Go smoothly breathing to the house of pray'r ; 

And in the garden-plot, from day to day, 

The lily blooms its long white life away. 

XXVI. 

And where two haughty maidens used to be, 
In pride of plume, where plumy Death had 
trod, 
Trailing their gorgeous velvets wantonly, 
Most unmeet pall, over the holy sod ; — 
There, gentle stranger, thou may'st only see 

Two sombre Peacocks. Age, with sapient 

nod 
Marking the spot, still tarries to declare 
How they once lived, and wherefore they are 
there. 
VOL. I. 9 



THE TWO SWANS. 



A FAIRY TALE. 



Immortal Imogen, crown'd queen above 
The lilies of thy sex, vouchsafe to hear 
A fairy dream in honour of true love — 
True above ills, and frailty, and all fear — 
Perchance a shadow of his own career 
Whose youth was darkly prison'd and long 

twined 
By serpent-sorrow, till white Love drew near, 
And sweetly sang him free, and round his mind 
A bright horizon threw, wherein no grief may 

wind. 

II. 

I saw a tower builded on a lake, 
Mock'd by its inverse shadow, dark and deep — 
That seem'd a still intenser night to make, 
Wherein the quiet waters sunk to sleep, — 
And, whatso'er was prison'd in that keep, 
A monstrous Snake was warden : — round and 
round 



i 



THE TWO SWANS. 131 

In sable ringlets I beheld him creep 
Blackest amid black shadows to the ground, 
Whilst his enormous head the topmost turret 
crown'd. 

III. 

From whence he shot fierce light against the 

stars, 
Making the pale moon j^aler with aiFright ; 
And with his ruby eye out-threaten'd Mars — 
That blazed in the mid-heavens, hot and 

bright — 
Nor slept, nor wink'd, but with a steadfast spite 
Watch'd their wan looks and tremblings in the 

skies ; 
And that he might not slumber in the night, 
The curtain-lids were pluck'd from his large 

eyes. 
So he might never drowse, but watch his secret 

prize. 

lY. 

Prince or princess in dismal durance pent, 
Victims of old Enchantment's love or hate, 
Their lives must all in painful sighs be spent. 
Watching the lonely waters soon and late. 
And clouds that pass and leave them to their 

fate, 
Or company their grief with heavy tears : — 
Meanwhile that Hojoe can spy no golden gate 
For sweet escapement, but in darksome fears 
They weep and pine away as if immortal years.. 



132 THE TWO SWANS. 



V. 

No gentle bird with gold upon its wing 
Will perch upon the grate — the gentle bird 
Is safe in leafy dell, and will not bring 
Freedom's sweet key-note and commission 

word 
Learn'd of a fairy's lips, for pity stirr'd — 
Lest while he trembling sings, untimely guest ! 
Watch'd by that cruel Snake and darkly heard, 
He leave a widow on her lonely nest. 
To press in silent grief the darlings of her breast. 

VI. 

No gallant knight, adventurous, in his bark. 
Will seek the fruitful perils of the place. 
To rouse with dipping oar the waters dark 
That bear that serpent-image on their face. 
And Love, brave Love ! though he attempt 

the base, 
Nerved to his loyal death, he may not win 
His captive lady from the strict embrace 
Of that foul Serpent, clasping her within 
His sable folds — like Eve enthrall'd by the old 

Sin. 

VII. 

But there is none — no knight in panoply, 
Nor Love, intrench'd in his strong steely coat : 
No little speck — no sail — no helper nigh, 
No sign — no whispering — no/ plash of boat : — 



THE TWO SWANS. 133 

The distant shores show dimly and remote, 
Made of a deeper mist, — serene and gray, — 
And slow and mute the cloudy shadows float 
Over the gloomy wave, and pass away, 
Chased by the silver beams that on their marges 
play. 

VIII. 

And bright and silvery the willows sleep 
Over the shady verge — no mad winds tease 
Their hoary heads ; but quietly they weep 
There sprinkling leaves — half fountains and half 

trees : 
There lilies be — and fairer than all these, 
A solitary Swan her breast of snow 
Launches against the wave that seems to 

freeze 
Into a chaste reflection, still below 
Twin-shadow of herself wherever she may go. 

IX. 

And forth she paddles in the very noon 
Of solemn midnight like an elfin thing. 
Charm'd into being by the argent moon — 
Whose silver light for love of her fair wing 
Goes v/ith her in the shade, still worshipping 
Her dainty plumage : — all around her grew 
A radiant circlet, like a fairy ring ; 
And all behind, a tiny little clue 
Of light, to guide her back across the waters 
blue. 



]34 



THE TWO SWANS. 



X. 

And sure she is no meaner than a fay, 
E.edeem'd from sleepy death, for beauty's sake, 
By old ordainment : — silent as she lay, 
Touch'd by a moonlight wand I saw her wake. 
And cut her leafy slough, and so forsake 
The verdant prison of her lily peers, 
That slept amidst the stars upon the lake — 
A breathing shape — restored to human fears. 
And new-born love and grief — self-conscious of 
her tears. 

XI. 

And now she clasps her wings around her heart, 
And near that lonely isle begins to glide 
Pale as her fears, and ofttimes with a start 
Turns her impatient head from side to side 
In universal terrors — all too wide 
To watch ; and often to that marble keep 
Upturns her pearly eyes, as if she spied 
Some foe, and crouches in the shadows steep 
That in the gloomy wave go diving fathoms deep. 

XII. 

And well she may, to spy that fearful thing 
All down the dusky walls in circlets wound ; 
Alas ! for what rare prize, with many a ring 
Girding the marble casket round and round ? 
His folded tail, lost in the gloom profound, 
Terribly darkeneth the rocky base ; 



THE TWO SAVANS. 135 

But on the top his monstrous head is crown'd 
With prickly spears, and on his doubtful face 
Gleam his unwearied eyes, red watchers of the 
place. 

XIII. 

Alas ! of the hot fires that nightly fall, 
No one will scorch him in those orbs of spite, 
So he may never see beneath the w^all 
That timid little creature, all too bright, 
That stretches her fair neck, slender and white, 
Invoking the pale moon, and vainly tries 
Her throbbing throat, as if to charm the night 
With song — but, hush — it perishes in sighs, 
And there will be no dirge, sad swelling though 
she dies ! 

XIV. 

She droops — she sinks — she leans upon the lake, 
Fainting again into a hfeless flower ; 
But soon the chilly springs anoint and wake 
Her spirit from its death, and with new power 
She sheds her stifled sorrows in a shower 
Of tender song, timed to her falling tears — 
That wins the shady summit of that tower, 
And, trembling all the sw^eeter for its fears. 
Fills with imploring moan that cruel monster's 
ears. 

XV. 

And, lo ! the scaly beast is all deprest. 
Subdued like Argus by the might of sound — 
What time Apollo his sweet lute addrest 



136 THE TWO SWANS. 

To magic converse with the air, and bound 
The many monster eyes, all slumber-drown'd : — 
So on the turret-top that watchful Snake 
Pillows his giant head, and lists profound. 
As if his wrathful spite would never wake, 
Charm'd into sudden sleep for Love and Beauty's 
sake! 

xvr. 

His prickly crest lies prone upon his crown, 
And thirsty lip from lip disparted flies, 
To drink that dainty flood of music down — 
His scaly throat is big with pent-up sighs — 
And whilst his hollow ear entranced lies, 
His looks for envy of the charmed sense 
Are fain to listen, till his steadfast eyes, 
Stung into pain by their own impotence, 
Distil enormous tears into the lake immense. 

XVII. 

Oh, tuneful Swan ! Oh, melancholy bird ! 
Sweet was that midnight miracle of song, 
Rich with ripe sorrow, needful of no word 
To tell of pain, and love, and love's deep 

wrong — 
Hinting a piteous tale — perchance how long 
Thy unknown tears were mingled with the lake. 
What time disguised thy leafy mates among — 
And no eye knew what human love and ache 
Dwelt in those dewy leaves, and heart so nigh to 
break. 



THE TWO SAYAXS. 137 



XVIII. 

Therefore no poet will ungently touch 
The water-lily, on whose eyelids dew 
Trembles like tears ; but ever hold it such 
As human pain may wander through and 

through, 
Turning the pale leaf paler in its hue — 
Wherein life dwells, transfigured, not entomb'd, 
By magic spells. Alas ! who ever knew 
Sorrow in all its shapes, leafy and plumed, 
Or in gross husks of brutes eternally inhumed ? 

XIX. 

And now the winged song has scaled the height 
Of that dark dwelling, builded for despair, 
And soon a little casement flashing bright 
Widens self-op en'd into the cool air — 
That music like a bird may enter there 
And soothe the captive in his stony cage; 
For there is nought of grief, or painful care, 
But plaintive song may happily engage 
From sense of its own ill, and tenderly assuage. 

XX. 

And forth into the light, small and remote, 
A creature, like the fair son of a king. 
Draws to the lattice in his jewell'd coat 
Against the silver moonhght glistening. 
And leans upon his white hand listening 



138 THE TWO SWANS. 

To that sweet music that with tenderer tone 
Salutes him, wondering what kindly thing 
Is come to soothe him with so tuneful moan, 
Singing beneath the walls as if for him alone ! 

XXI. 

And while he listens, the mysterious song, 
Woven with timid particles of speech, 
Twines into passionate words that grieve along 

• The melancholy notes, and softly teach 

The secrets of true love, — that trembling reach 
His earnest ear, and through the shadows dun 
He missions like replies, and each to each 
Their silver voices mingle into one. 

Like blended streams that make one music as 
they run. 

XXII. 

"Ah! Love, my hope is swooning in my 

heart, — 
Aye, sweet, my cage is strong and hung full 

high- 
Alas ! our lips are held so far apart, 
Thy words come faint, they have so far to 

flyl— 

If I may only shun that serpent-eye, — 
Ah me ! that serpent-eye doth never sleep ; — 
Then, nearer thee. Love's martyr, I will die ! — 
Alas, alas ! that word has made me weep ! 
For pity's sake remain safe in thy marble 
keep! 



THE TWO SWANS. 189 



XXIIl. 

Mj marble keep ! it is my marble tomb — 
Nay, sweet ! but thou hast there thy living 

breath — 
Aye to expend in siglis for this hard doom ; — • 
But I will come to thee and sing beneath, 
And nightly so beguile this serpent wreath ; — 
Nay, I will find a path from these despairs. 
Ah, needs then thou must tread the back of 

death. 
Making his stony ribs thy stony stairs. — 
Behold his ruby eye, how fearfully it glares ! " 

XXIV. 

Full sudden at these words, the princely youth 
Leaps on the scaly back that slumbers, still 
Unconscious of his foot, yet not for ruth, 
But numb'd to dulness by the fairy skill 
Of that sweet music (all more wild and shrill 
For intense fear) that charm'd him as he lay — 
Meanwhile the lover nerves his desperate will, 
Held some short throbs by natural dismay, 
Then down, down the serpent-track begins his 
darksome way. 



Now dimly seen — now toiling out of sight. 
Eclipsed and cover'd by the envious wall ; 
Now fair and spangled in the sudden light, 



140 



THE TWO SWANS. 



And clinging with wide arms for fear of fall ; 
Now dark and shelter'd by a kindly pall 
Of dusky shadow from his wakeful foe ; 
Slowly he winds adown — dimly and small, 
Watch'd by the gentle Swan that sings belowj^ 
Her hope increasing, still, the larger he doth 
grow. 

XXVI. 

But nine times nine the serpent folds embrace 
The marble walls about — which he must tread 
Before his anxious foot may touch the base : 
Long is the dreary path, and must be sped ! 
But Love, that holds the mastery of dread. 
Braces his spirit, and with constant toil 
He wins his way, and now, with arms out- 
spread, 
Impatient plunges from the last long coil : 
So may all gentle Love ungentle Malice foil. 



The song is hush'd, the charm is all complete, 
And two fair Swans are swimming on the 

lake: 
But scarce their tender bills have time to meet. 
When fiercely drops adown that cruel Snake — 
His steely scales a fearful rustling make. 
Like autumn leaves that tremble and foretell 
The sable storm ; — the plumy lovers quake — 
And feel the troubled waters pant and swell. 
Heaved by the giant bulk of their pursuer fell. 



THE TAVO SWANS. 141 

XXVIII. 

His jaws, wide yawning like the gates of Death, 
Hiss horrible pursuit — his red e}es glare 
The waters into blood — bis eager breath 
Grows hot upon their plumes : — now, minstrel 

fair ! 
She drops her ring into the waves, and there 
It widens all around, a fairy ring 
Wrought of the silver light — the fearful pair 
Swim in the very midst, and pant and cling 
The closer for their fears, and tremble wing to 

wing. 

XXIX. 

Bending their course over the pale gray lake. 
Against the pajlid East, wherein light play'd 
In tender flushes, still the baffled Snake 
Circled them round continually, and bay'd 
Hoarsely and loud, forbidden to invade 
The sanctuary ring — his sable mail 
Roll'd darkly through the flood, and writhed 

and made 
A shining track over the waters pale, 
Lash'd into boiling foam by his enormous tail. 

XXX. 

And so they sail'd into the distance dim, 
Into the very distance — small and white. 
Like snowy blossoms of the spring that swim 
Over the brooklets — follow'd by the spite 



142 THE TWO SWANS. 

Of that huge Serpent, that with wild affright 
Worried them on their course, and sore annoj, 
Till on the grassy marge I saw them 'light, 
And change, anon, a gentle girl and boy, 
Lock'd in embrace of sweet unutterable joy ! 

XXXI. 

Then came the Morn, and with her pearly 

showers 
Wept on them, like a mother, in whose eyes 
Tears are no grief; and from his rosy bowers 
The Oriental sun began to rise, 
Chasing the darksome shadows from the skies ; 
Wherewith that sable Serpent far away 
Fled, like a part of night — delicious sighs 
From waking blossoms purified the day. 
And little birds were singing sweetly from each 

spray. 



THE DREAM OF EUGENE ARAM. 

'TwAS in the prime of summer time, 

An evening calm and cool, 
And four-and-twentj happy boys 

Came bounding out of school : 
There were some that ran and some that leapt, 
. Like troutlets in a pool. 

Away they sped with gamesome minds. 

And souls untouch'd by sin ; 
To a level mead they came, and there 

They drave the wickets in : 
Pleasantly shone the setting sun 

Over the town of Lynn. 

Like sportive deer they coursed about, 

And shouted as they ran, — 
Turning to mirth all things of earth. 

As only boyhood can ; 
But the Usher sat remote from all, 

A melancholy man ! 

His hat was off, his vest apart, 

To catch heaven's blessed breeze ; 
For a burning thought was in his brow, 



144 THE DREAM OF EUGENE ARAM. 

And his bosom ill at ease : 
So he lean'd his head on his hands, and read 
The book between his knees ! 

Leaf after leaf he turn'd it o'er, 

Nor ever glanced aside, 
For the peace of his soul he read that book 

In the golden eventide : 
Much study had made him very lean, 

And pale, and leaden-eyed. 

At last he shut the ponderous tome, 
With a fast and fervent grasp 

He strain'd the dusky covers close, 
And fix'd the brazen hasp : 

" Oh, God ! could I so close my mind, 
And clasp it with a clasp ! " 

Then leaping on his feet upright. 
Some moody turns he took, — 

Now up the mead, then down the mead, 
And past a shady nook, — 

And, lo ! he saw a little boy 
That pored upon a book ! 

" My gentle lad, what is 't you read — 

Romance or fairy fable ? 
Or is it some historic page. 

Of kings and crowns unstable ? " 
The young boy gave an upward glance, — 

"It is 'The Death of Abel.'" 



THE DREAM OF EUGENE ARAM. 145 

The Usher took six hasty strides, 

As smit with sudden pain, — 
Six hasty strides beyond the place. 

Then slowly back again ; 
And down he sat beside the lad, 

And talk'd with him of Cain ; 

And, long since then, of bloody men. 

Whose deeds tradition saves ; 
Of lonely folk cut off unseen, 

And hid in sudden graves ; 
Of horrid stabs, in groves forlorn. 

And murders done in caves ; 

And how the sprites of injured men 

Shriek upward from the sod, — 
Aye, how the ghostly hand will point 

To shew the burial clod ; 
And unknown facts of guilty acts 

Are seen in dreams from God ! 

He told how murderers walk the earth 

Beneath the curse of Cain, — 
With crimson clouds before their eyes, 

And flames about their brain : 
For blood has left upon their souls 

Its everlasting stain ! 

" And well," quoth he, " I know, for truth, 

Their pangs must be extreme, — 
Woe, woe, unutterable woe, — 

VOL. I. 10 



146 THE DREAM OF EUGENE ARAM. 

Who spill life's sacred stream ! 
iFor why ? Methought, last night, I wrought 
A murder, in a dream ! 

" One that had never done me wrong — 

A feeble man and old ; 
T led him to a Ion el j field, — 

The moon shone clear and cold : 
Now here, said I, this man shall die, 

And I will have his gold ! 

" Two sudden blows with a ragged stick, 

And one with a heavy stone. 
One hurried gash with a hasty knife, — 

And then the deed was done : 
There was nothing lying at my foot 

But lifeless flesh and bone ! 

" Nothing but lifeless flesh and bone, 

That could not do me ill ; 
And yet I fear'd him all the more, 

For lying there so still : 
There was a manhood in his look. 

That murder could not kill ! 

"And, lo ! the universal air 

Seem'd lit with ghastly flame ; — 

Ten thousand thousand dreadful eyes 
Were looking down in blame : 

I took the dead man by his hand. 
And call'd upon his name ! 



THE DREAM OF EUGENE ARAM. 147 

' Oh, God ! it made me quake to see 

Such sense within the slain ! 
But when I touch'd the lifeless clay, 

The blood gush'd out amain ! 
For every clot, a burning spot 

Was scorching in my brain ! 

" My head was like an ardent coal, 

My heart as solid ice ; 
My wretched, wretched soul, I knew, 

Was at the Devil's price : 
A dozen times I groan'd ; the dead 

Had never groan'd but twice ! 

"And noWj from forth the frowning sky, 
From the Heaven's topmost height, 

I heard a voice — the awful voice 

Of the blood-avenging sprite : — 

' Thou guilty man ! take up thy dead 
And hide it from my sight ! ' 

" I took the dreary body up, 

And cast it in a stream, — 
A sluggish water, black as ink, 

The depth was so extreme : — 
My gentle Boy, remember this 

Is nothing but a dream ! 



" Down went the corse with a hollow pkmg 

And vanish'd in the pool ; 
Anon I cleansed my bloody hands, 



148 THE DREAM OF EUGENE ARAM. 

And wash'd my forehead cool, 
And sat among the urchins young, 
That evening in the school. 

" Oh, Heaven ! to think of their Avhite souls, 
And mine so black and grim ! 

I could not share in childish prayer. 
Nor join in Evening Hymn : 

Like a Devil of the Pit I seem'd, 
'Mid holy Cherubim ! 

" And peace went with them, one and all. 
And each calm pillow spread ; 

But Guilt was my grim Chamberlain 
That lighted me to bed ; 

And drew my midnight curtains round, 
With fingers bloody red ! 

" All night I lay in agony. 

In anguish dark and deep, 
My fever'd eyes I dared not close, 

But stared aghast at Sleep : 
For Sin had render'd unto her 

The keys of Hell to keep ! 

" All night I lay in agony, 

From weary chime to chime, 

With one besetting horrid hint. 
That rack'd me all the time ; 

A mighty yearning, like the first 
Fierce impulse unto crime ! 



THE DREAM OF EUGENE ARAM. 140 

" One stern tyrannic thought, that made 

All other thoughts its slave ; ' 
Stronger and stronger every pulse 

Did that temptation crave, — 
Still urging me to go and see 

The Dead Man in his grave ! 

" Heavily I rose up, as soon 

As light was in the sky, 
And sought the black accursed pool 

With a wild misgiving eye ; 
And I saw the Dead in the river bed, 

For the faithless stream was dry. 

" Merrily rose the lark, and shook 

The dew-drop from its wing ; 
But I never mark'd its morning flight, 

I never heard it sing : 
For I was stooping once again 

Under the horrid thing. 

" With breathless speed, like a soul in chase, 

I took him up and ran ; — 
There was no time to dig a grave 

Before the day began : 
In a lonesome wood, with heaps of leaves, 

I hid the murder'd man ! 

" And all that day I read in school. 

But my thought was other where ; 
As soon as the mid-day task was done, 



150 THE DREAM OF EUGENE ARAM. 

In secret I was there : 
And a mightj wind had swept the leaves, 
And still the corse was bare ! 

" Then down I cast me on mj face, 

And first began to weep, 
For I knew my secret then was one 

That earth refused to keep : 
Or land or sea, though he should be 

Ten thousand fathoms deep. 

" So wills the fierce avenging Sprite, 
Till blood for blood atones ! 

Aye, though he 's buried in a cave, 
And trodden down with stones, 

And years have rotted off his flesh,-^ 
The world shall see his bones ! 

" Oh, God ! that horrid, horrid dream 

Besets me now awake ! 
Again — again, with dizzy brain, 

The human life I take ; 
And my red right hand grows raging hot, 

Like Cranmer's at the stake. 

" And still no peace for the restless clay, 
Will wave or mould allow ; 

The horrid thing pursues my soul, — 
It stands before me now ! " 

The fearful Boy look'd up, and saw 
Huge drops upon his brow. 



THE DREAM OF EUGENE ARAM. 151 

That very night, while gentle sleep 

The urchin eyelids kiss'd, 
Two stern-faced men set out from Lynn, 

Through the cold and heavy mist ; 
And Eugene Aram walk'd between, 

"With gyves upon his wrist. 



THE ELM TREE: 

A DREAM m THE WOODS. 

" And this our life, exempt from public haunt, 
Finds tongues in trees." As You Like It, 

'TwAS in a shady Avenue, 
Where lofty Elms abound — 
And from a Tree 
There came to me 
A sad and solemn sound, 
That sometimes murmur'd overhead, 
And sometimes underground. 

Amongst the leaves it seem'd to sigh, 

Amid the boughs to moan ; 
It mutter'd in the stem, and then 

The roots took up the tone ; 
As if beneath the dewy grass 

The dead began to groan. 

No breeze there was to stir the leaves ; 

No bolts that tempests launch. 
To rend the trunk or rugged bark ; 



THE ELM TREE. 153 

No gale to bend the branch ; 
No quake of earth to heave the roots, 

That stood so stiiF and stanch. 
No bird was preening up aloft, 

To rustle with its wing ; 
No squirrel, in its sport or fear. 

From bough to bough to spring ; 
The solid bole 
Had ne'er a hole 

To hide a living thing ! 

No scooping hollow cell to lodge 
A furtive beast or fowl, 
The martin, bat. 
Or forest cat 
That nightly loves to prowl, 
Nor ivy nook so apt to shroud 
The moping, snoring owl. 

But still the sound was in my ear, 

A sad and solemn sound. 
That sometimes murmur'd overhead, 

And sometimes underground — 
'Twas in a shady Avenue 

Where lofty Elms abound. 

O hath the Dryad still a tongue 

In this ungenial clime ? 
Have Sylvan Spirits still a voice 

As in the classic prime— 



1,54 THE ELM TREE. 

To make the forest voluble, 
As in the olden time ? 

The olden time is dead and gone ; 

Its years have fiU'd their sum — 
And e'en in Greece — her native Greece — 

The Sylvan Nymph is dumb — 
From Ash, and Beech, and aged Oak, 

No classic whispers come. 

From Poplar, Pine, and drooping Birch, 
And fragrant Linden Trees ; 
No living sound 
E'er hovers round. 
Unless the vagrant breeze. 
The music of the merry bird, 
Or hum of busy bees. 

But busy bees forsake the Elm 

That bears no bloom aloft — 
The Finch was in the hawthorn-bush. 

The Blackbird in the croft ; 
And among the firs the brooding Dove, 

That else might murmur soft. 

Yet still I heard that solemn sound. 

And sad it was to boot. 
From ev'ry overhanging bough, 

And each minuter shoot ; 
From rugged trunk and mossy rind, 

And from the twisted root. 



THE ELM TREE. 155 

From these, — a melancholy moan ; 

From those, — a dreary sigh ; 
As if the boughs were wintry bare, 

And wild winds sw^eeping by — 
Whereas the smallest fleecy cloud 

Was steadfast in the sky. 

No sign or touch of stirring air 

Could either sense observe — 
The zephyr had not breath enough 

The thistle-down to swerve, 
Or force the filmy gossamers 

To take another curve. 

In still and silent slumber hush'd 

All Nature seem'd to be : 
From heaven above, or earth beneath, 

No whisper came to me — 
Except the solemn sound and sad 

From that Mysterious Tree ! 

A hollow, hollow^, hollow sound, 

As is that dreamy roar 
When distant billows boil and bound 

Along a shingly shore — 
But the ocean brim was far aloof, 

A hundred miles or more. 

No murmur of the gusty sea. 
No tumult of the beach, 



156 THE ELM THEE. 

However they may foam and fret, 
The bounded sense could reach — 

Methought the trees in mystic tongue 
Were talking each to each ! — 

Mayhap, rehearsing ancient tales 
Of greenwood love or guilt, 
Of whisper'd vows 
Beneath their boughs ; 
Or blood obscurely spilt ; 
Or of that near-hand Mansion House 
A Royal Tudor built. 

Perchance, of booty won or shared 
Beneath the starry cope — 

Or where the suicidal wretch 
Hung up the fatal rope ; 

Or Beauty kept an evil tryste, 
Insnared by Love and Hope. 

Of graves, perchance, untimely scoop'd 

At midnight dark and dank — 
And what is underneath the sod 
Whereon the grass is rank — 
Of old intrigues, 
And privy leagues, 
Tradition leaves in blank. 

Of traitor lips that mutter'd plots — 
Of Kin who fouo-ht and fell — 



THE ELM TREE. 157 

God knows the undiscover'd schemes, 

The arts and acts of Hell, 
Perform'd long generations since, 

If trees had tongues to tell ! 

With wary eyes, and ears alert. 

As one who walks afraid, 
I wander'd down the dappled path 

Of mingled light and shade — 
How sweetly gleam'd that arch of blue 

Beyond the green arcade ! 

How cheerly shone the glimpse of Heav'n 

Beyond that verdant aisle ! 
All overarch'd with lofty elms, 

That quench'd the light, the while. 
As dim and chill 
As serves to fill 
Some old Cathedral pile ! 

And many a gnarled trunk was there, 

That ages long had stood, 

Till Time had wrought them into shapes 
Like Pan's fantastic brood ; 
Or still more foul and hideous forms 

That Pagans carve in wood ! 

A crouching Satyr lurking here — 

And there a Goblin grim — 
As staring full of demon life 



158 THE ELM TREE. 

As Gothic sculptor's whim — 
A marvel it had scarcely been 
To hear a voice from him ! 

Some whisper from that horrid mouth 
Of strange, unearthly tone ; 

Or wdld infernal laugh, to chill 
One's marrow in the bone. 

But no it grins like rigid Death, 

And silent as a stone ! 

As silent as its fellows be. 

For all is mute with them — 

The branch that climbs the leafy roof- 

The rough and mossy stem — 

The crooked root, 

And tender shoot, 

Where hangs the dewy gem. 

One mystic Tree alone there is, 
Of sad and solemn sound — 

That sometimes murmurs overhead, 
And sometimes underground — 

In all that shady Avenue, 
Where lofty Elms abound. 



THE ELM TREE. 159 



PART II. 



The Scene is changed ! No green Arcade, 

No Trees all ranged a-row — 
But scatter'd like a beaten host, 

Dispersing to and fro ; 
With here and there a sylvan corse, 

That fell before the foe. 

The Foe that down in yonder dell 

Pursues his daily toil ; 
As witness many a prostrate trunk, 

Bereft of leafy spoil, 
Hard by its wooden stump, whereon 

The adder loves to coil. 

Alone he works — his ringing blows 
Have banish'd bird and beast ; 

The Hind and Fawn have canter'd off 
A hundred yards at least ; 

And on the maple's lofty top. 
The linnet's song has ceased. 

No eye his labour overlooks, 

Or when he takes his rest ; 
Except the timid trush that peeps 

Above her secret nest, 
Forbid by love to leave the young 

Beneath her speckled breast. 



160 



THE ELM TREE. 

The Woodman's heart is in his work, 

His axe is sharp and good : 

With sturdy arm and steady aim 

He smites the gaping wood ; 

From distant rocks 

His lusty knocks 

Re-echo many a rood. 

His axe is keen, his arm is strong ; 

The muscles serve him well ; 
His years have reach'd an extra span, 

The number none can tell ; 
But still his lifelong task has been 

The Timber Tree to fell. 

Through Summer's parching sultriness, 
And Winter's freezing cold, 
From sapling youth 
To virile growth, 
And Age's rigid mould, 
His energetic axe hath rung 
Within that Forest old. 

Aloft, upon his poising steel 

The vivid sunbeams glance- 
About his head and round his feet 

The forest shadows dance ; 
And bounding from his russet coat 
The acorn drops askance. 



THE ELM TREE. 161 

His face is like a Druid's face, 

With wrinkles furrow'd deep, 
And tann'd by scorching suns as brown 

As corn that 's ripe to reap ; 
But the hair on brow, and cheek, and chin, 

Is white as wool of sheep. 

His frame is like a giant's frame ; 

His legs are long and stark ; 
His arms like limbs of knotted yew ; 
His hands like rugged bark ; 
So he felleth still 
With right good will, 
As if to build an Ark ! 

Oh ! well within His fatal path 

The fearful Tree might quake 
Through every fibre, twig, and leaf, 
With aspen tremour shake ; 
Through trunk and root, 
And branch and shoot, 
A low complaining make ! 

Oh ! well to Him the Tree might breathe 

A sad and solemn sound, 
A sigh that murmur'd overhead, 

And groans from underground ; 
As in that shady Avenue 

Where lofty Elms abound ! 



VOL. I. 



11 



il62 THE ELM TREE. 

.But calm and mute the Maple stands 
The Plane, the Ash, the Fir, 

The Elm, the Beech, the drooping Birch, 
Without the least demur ; 

And e'en the Aspen's hoary leaf 
. Makes no unusual stir. 

The Pines — those old gigantic Pines, 
That writhe — recalling soon 

The famous Human Group that writhes 
With Snakes in wild festoon — 

'In ramous wrestlings interlaced 
A Forest Laocoon — 

X/ike Titans of primeval girth 

Bj tortures overcome, 
Their brown enormous limbs they twine, 

Bedew'd with tears of gum — 
Fierce agonies that ought to yell. 

But, like the marble, dumb. 

Nay, yonder blasted Elm that stands 

So like a man of sin, 
Who, frantic, flings his arms abroad 

To feel the Worm within — 
For all that gesture, so intense, 

It makes no sort of din ! 

An universal silence reigns 
In rugged bark or peel. 



THE ELM TREE. 163 

Except that very trunk wliicli rings 

Beneath the biting steel — 
Meanwhile the Woodman plies his axe 

With unrelenting zeal ! 

No rustic song is on his tongue, 

No whistle on his lips ; 
But with a quiet thoughtfulness 

His trusty tool he grips, 
And, stroke on stroke, keeps hacking out 

The bright and flying chips. 

Stroke after stroke, with frequent dint 

He spreads the fatal gash ; 
Till, lo ! the remnant fibres rend, 

With harsh and sudden crash. 
And on the dull resounding turf 

The jarring branches lash ! 

Oh ! now the Forest Trees may sigh. 

The Ash, the Poplar tall, 
The Elm, the Birch, the drooping Beech. 
The Aspens^one and all, 
With solemn groan 
And hollow moan 
Lament a comrade's fall ! 

A goodly Elm, of noble girth. 

That, thrice the human span — 
While on their variegated course 



164 THE ELM TREE. 

The constant Seasons ran — 
Through gale, and hail, and fiery bolt, 
Had stood erect as Man. 

But now, like mortal Man himself, 
Struck down by hand of God, 

Or heathen Idol tumbled prone 
Beneath th' Eternal's nod, 

In all its giant bulk and length 
It lies along the sod ! 

Aye, now the Forest Trees may grieve 
And make a common moan 

Around that patriarchal trunk 
So newly overthrown ; 

And with a murmur recognize 
A doom to be their own ! 

The Echo sleeps : the idle axe, 

A disregarded tool. 
Lies crushing with its passive weight 

The toad's reputed stool — 
The "Woodman wipes his dewy brow 

Within the shadows cool. 

No Zephyr stirs : the ear may catch 

The smallest insect-hum ; 
But on the disappointed sense 

No mystic whispers come ; 
No tone of sylvan sympathy, 

The Forest Trees are dumb. 



THE ELM TREE. 165 

No leafj noise, nor inward voice, 

No sad and solemn sound, 
That sometimes murmurs overhead. 

And sometimes underground ; 
As in that shady Avenue, 

Where lofty Elms abound ! 



PART III. 

The deed is done : the Tree is low 

That stood so long and firm ; 
The Woodman and his axe are gone, 

His toil has found its term ; 
And where he wrought, the speckled Thru> 

Securely hunts the worm. 

The Cony from the sandy bank 

Has run a rapid race, 
Through thistle, bent, and tangled fern, 

To seek the open space ; 
And on its haunches sits erect 

To clean its furry face. 

The dappled Fawn is close at hand. 
The Hind is browsing near, — 

And on the Larch's lowest bough 
The Ousel whistles clear : 



166 THE ELM TREE. 

But checks the note 
Within its throat, 
As choked with sudden fear ! 

With sudden fear her wormy quest 
The Thrush abruptly quits — 

Through thistle, bent, and tangled fern 
The startled Cony flits ; 

And on the Larch's lowest bough 
No more the Ousel sits. 

With sudden fear 
The dappled Deer 
Effect a swift escape ; 
But well might bolder creatures start, 

And fly, or stand agape, 
With rising hair and curdled blood, 
To see so grim a Shape ! 

The very sky turns pale above ; 

The earth grows dark beneath ; 
The human Terror thrills with cold. 

And draws a shorter breath — 
An universal panic owns 

The dread approach of Death ! 

With silent pace, as shadows come. 

And dark as shadows be. 
The grisly Phantom takes his stand 

Beside the fallen Tree, 



THE ELM TREE. 167 



And scans it with his gloomy eyes, 
And laughs with horrid glee 



A dreary laugh and desolate, 
Where mirth is void and null, 

As hollow as its echo sounds 
Within the hollow skull — 

" Whoever laid this tree along. 
His hatchet was not dull ! 



" The human arm and human tool 

Have done their duty well ! 
But after sound of ringing axe 
Must sound the ringing knell ; 
When Elm or Oak 
Have felt the stroke 
My turn it is to fell ! 

" No passive unregarded tree, 

A senseless thing of wood. 
Wherein the sluggish sap ascends 

To swell the vernal bud — 
But conscious, moving, breathing trunks 

That throb with living blood ! 

" No forest Monarch yearly clad 

In mantle green or brown ; 
That unrecorded lives, and falls 

By hand of rustic clown — 
But Kings who don the purj)le robe, 

And wear the jewell'd crown. 



168 THE ELM TREE. 

" Ah ! little recks the Royal mind, 

Within his Banquet Hall, 
While tapers shine and Music breathes 

And Beauty leads the Ball, — 
He little recks the oaken plank 

Shall be his palace wall ! 

" Ah, little dreams the haughty Peer, 
The while his Falcon flies — 

Or on the blood-bedabbled turf 
The antler'd quarry dies — ■ 

That in his own ancestral Park 
The narrow dwelling lies. 

" But haughty Peer and mighty King 
One doom shall overwhelm ! 
The oaken cell 
Shall lodge him well 
Whose sceptre ruled a realm — 
While he who never knew a home. 
Shall find it in the Elm ! 

" The tatter'd, lean, dejected wretch. 
Who begs from door to door. 

And dies within the cressy ditch, 
Or on the barren moor, 

The friendly Elm shall lodge and clothe 
That houseless man and poor ! 

" Yea, this recumbent rugged trunk, 
That lies so long and prone. 



THE ELM TREE. 169 

With many a fallen acorn-cup, 

And mast and firry cone — 
This rugged trunk shall hold its share 

Of mortal flesh and bone ! 



" A Miser hoarding heaps of gold, 
But pale with ague-fears — 

A AYife lamenting love's decay. 
With secret cruel tears, 

Distilling bitter, bitter drops 
From sweets of former years — 

" A Man within whose gloomy mind 
Offence had darkly sunk, 

Who out of fierce Revenge's cup 
Hath madly, darkly drunk — 

Grief, Avarice, and Hate shall sleep 
Within this very trunk I 

" This massy trunk that lies along, 
And many more must fall — 
For the very knave 
Who digs the grave. 
The man who spreads the pall, 
And he who tolls the funeral bell. 
The Elm shall have them all ! 

" The tall abounding Elm that grows 
In hedgerows up and down ; 
In field and forest, copse and park, 



170 THE ELM TREE. 

And in the peopled town, 
With colonies of noisy rooks 
That nestle on its crown. 

" And w^ell th' abounding Elm may grow 

In field and hedge so rife, 
In forest, copse, and wooded park, 

And 'mid the city's strife, 
For, every hour that passes by 

Shall end a human life ! " 

The Phantom ends : the shade is gone ; 

The sky is clear and bright ; 
On turf, and moss, and fallen Tree, 

There glows a ruddy light ; 
And bounding through the golden fern 

The Rabbit comes to bite. 

The Thrush's mate beside her sits 

And pipes a merry lay ; 
The Dove is in the evergreens ; 

And on the Larch's spray 
The Fly-bird flutters up and down, 

To catch its tiny prey. 

The gentle Hind and dappled Fawn 

Are coming up the glade ; 
Each harmless furr'd and feather'd thing 

Is glad, and not afraid — 
But on my sadden'd spirit still 

The Shadow leaves a shade. 



THE ELM TREE. 171 

A secret, vague, prophetic gloom, 

As though by certain mark 
I knew the fore-appointed Tree, 

Within whose rugged bark 
This warm and living frame shall find 

Its narrow house and dark. 

That mystic Tree which breathed to me 

A sad and solemn sound, 
That sometimes murmur'd overhead, 

And sometimes underground ; 
Within that shady Avenue 

Where lofty Elms abound. 



THE HAUNTED HOUSE. 

A ROMANCE. 

"A jolly place," said he, " in times of old, 
But something ails it now: the place is curst." 

Hakt-Leap Well, by Wordsworth. 

PAKT I. 

Some dreams we have are nothing else but 

dreams, 
Unnatural and full of contradictions ; 
Yet others of our most romantic schemes 
Are something more than fictions. 

It might be only on enchanted ground ; 
It might be merely by a thought's expansion ; 
But in the spirit, or the flesh, I found 
An old deserted Mansion. 

A residence for woman, child, and man, 
A dwelling-place, — and yet no habitation ; 
A House, — but under some prodigious ban 
Of excommunication. 



THE HAUNTED HOUSE. 173 

Unhinged the iron gates half open hung, 
Jarr'd by the gusty gales of many winters, 
That from its crumbled pedestal had flung 
One marble globe in splinters. 

No dog was at the threshold, great or small ; 
No pigeon on the roof — no household creature — 
No cat demurely dozing on the wall — 
Not one domestic feature. 

No human figure stirr'd, to go or come, 
No face look'd forth from shut or open case- 
ment ; 
No chimney smoked — there was no sign of Home 
From parapet to basement. 

With shatter'd panes the grassy court was starr'd ; 
The time-worn coping-stone had tumbled after; 
And through the ragged roof the sky shone, barr'd 
With naked beam and rafter. 

O'er all there hung a shadow and a fear ; 
A sense of mystery the spirit daunted, 
And said, as plain as whisper in the ear, 
The place is Haunted! 

The flow'r grew Avild and rankly as the weed, 
Roses with thistles struggled for espial. 
And vagrant plants of parasitic breed 
Had overgrown the Dial. 



174 THE HAUNTED HOUSE. 

But gay or gloomy, steadfast or infirm. 
No heart was there to heed the hour's duration; 
All times and tides were lost in one long term 
Of stagnant desolation. 

The wren had built within the Porch, she found 
Its quiet loneliness so sure and thorough ; 
And on the lawn, — within its turfy mound, — 
The rabbit made his burrow. 

The rabbit wild and gray, that flitted through 
The shrubby clumps, and frisk'd. and sat, and 

vanish'd, 
But leisurely and bold, as if he knew 
His enemy was banish'd. 

The wary crow, — the pheasant from the woods — 
Lull'd by the still and everlasting sameness, 
Close to the Mansion, like domestic broods. 
Fed with a " shocking tameness." 

The coot was swimming in the reedy pond. 
Beside the water-hen, so soon affrighted ; 
And in the weedy moat the heron, fond 
Of solitude, alighted. 

The moping heron, motionless and stiff, 
That on a stone, as silently and stilly. 
Stood, an apparent sentinel, as if 
To guard the water-lily. 



THE IIAUXTED HOUSE. 175 

No sound was heard, except, from far away, 
The ringing of the Whitwall's shrilly laughter, 
Or, now and then, the chatter of the jay, 

That Echo murraur'd after. 

« 

But Echo never mock'd the human tongue ; 
Some weighty crime, that Heaven could not par- 
A secret curse on that old Building hung, [don, 
And its deserted Garden. 

The beds were all untouch'd by hand or tool ; 
No footstep mark'd the damp and mossy gravel, 
Each walk as green as is the mantled pool, 
For want of human travel. 

The vine unpruned, and the neglected peach, 
Droop'd from the wall with which they used to 

grapple ; 
And on the canker'd tree, in easy reach, 
Rotted the golden apple. 

But awfully the truant shunn'd the ground, 
The vagrant kept aloof, and daring Poacher ; 
In spite of gaps that through the fences round 
Invited the encroacher. 

For over all there hung a cloud of fear, 
A sense of mystery the spirit daunted, 
And said as plain as whisper in the ear, 
The place is Haunted ! 



176 THE HAUNTED HOUSE. 

The pear and quince lay squander'cl on the grass ; 
The mould was purple with unheeded showers 
Of bloomy plums — a Wilderness it was 
Of fruits, and weeds, and flowers ! 

The marigold amidst the nettles blew, 

The gourd embraced the rose-bush in its ramble, 

The thistle and the stock together grew, 

The hollyhock and bramble. 

The bear-bine with the lilac interlaced. 
The sturdy burdock choked its slender neigh- 
bour. 
The spicy pink. All tokens were effaced 
Of human care and labour. 

The very yew Formality had train'd 
To such a rigid pyramidal stature. 
For want of trimming had almost regain'd 
The raofo-edness of nature. 



*oo" 



The Fountain was a-dry — neglect and time 
Had marr'd the work of artisan and mason. 
And efts and croaking frogs, begot of slime, 
Sprawl'd in the ruin'd bason. 

The Statue, fallen from its marble base. 
Amidst the refuse leaves, and herbage rotten, 
Lay like the Idol of some bygone race. 
Its name and rites forgotten. 



THE HAUNTED HOUSE. 177 

On ev'ry side the aspect was the same, 
All ruin'd, desolate, forlorn and savage : 
No hand or foot within the precinct came 
To rectify or ravage. 

For over all there hung a cloud of fear, 
A sense of mystery the spirit daunted. 
And said, as plain as whisper in the ear, 
The place is Haunted ! 



PART II. 

O, very gloomy is the House of Woe, 
Where tears are falling while the bell is knelling, 
With all the dark solemnities which show 
That Death is in the dwelling ! 

O very, very dreary is the room 
Where Love, domestic Love, no longer nestles. 
But smitten by the common stroke of doom, 
The Corpse lies on the trestles ! 

But House of Woe, and hearse, and sable pall. 
The narrow home of the departed mortal, 
Ne'er look'd so gloomy as that Ghostly Hall, 
With its deserted portal ! 
VOL. I. 12 



178 THE HAUNTED HOUSE. 

The centipede along the threshold crept, 
The cobweb hung across in mazy tangle, 
And in its winding-sheet the maggot slept, 
At every nook and angle. 

The keyhole lodged the earwig and her brood. 
The emmets of the steps had old possession, 
And march'd in search of their diurnal food 
In undisturb'd procession. 

As undisturb'd as the prehensile cell 
Of moth or maggot, or the spider's tissue, 
For never foot upon that threshold fell, 
To enter or to issue. 

O'er all there hung the shadow of a fear, 
A sense of mystery the spirit daunted. 
And said, as plain as whisper in the ear. 
The place is Haunted. 

Howbeit, the door I push'd — or so I dreamed — 
Which slowly, slowly gaped, — the hinges creak- 
ing 
With such a rusty eloquence, it seem'd 
That Time himself was speaking. 

But Time was dumb within that Mansion old, 
Or left his tale to the heraldic banners 
That hung from the corroded walls, and told 
Of former men and manners. 



THE HAUNTED HOUSE. 179 

Those tatter'd flags, that with the open'd door, 
Seem'd the old wave of battle to rememijer, 
While fallen fragments danced upon the floor 
Like dead leaves in December. 

The startled bats flew out — bird after bird — 
The screechowl overhead began to flutter, 
And seem'd to mock the cry that she had 

heard 
Some dying victim utter ! 

A shriek that echoed from the joisted roof, 
And up the stair, and further still and further. 
Till in some ringing chamber far aloof 
It ceased its tale of murther ! 

Meanwhile the rusty armour rattled round. 
The banner shudder'd, and the ragged streamer ; 
All things the horrid tenor of the sound 
Acknowledged with a tremor. 

The antlers, where the helmet hung and belt, 
Stirr'd as the tempest stirs the forest branches, 
Or as the stag had trembled when he felt 
The bloodhound at his haunches. 



The window jingled in its crumbled frame, 
And thro' its many gaps of destitution 
Dolorous moans and hollow sighings came, 
Like those of dissolution. 



180 THE HAUNTED HOUSE. 

The wood-louse dropi3'd, and roll'd into a ball, 
Touch'd bj some impulse occult or mechanic ; 
And nameless beetles ran along the wall 
In universal panic. 

The subtle spider, that from overhead 
Hung like a spy on human guilt and error. 
Suddenly turn'd, and up its slender thread 
Ean with a nimble terror. 

The very stains and fractures on the wall 
Assuming features solemn and terrific, 
Hinted some Tragedy of that old Hall, 
Lock'd up in hieroglyphic. 

Some tale that might, perchance, have solved the 

doubt. 
Wherefore amongst those flags so dull and livid. 
The banner of the Bloody Hand shone out, 
So ominously vivid. 

Some key to that inscrutable appeal, 
"Which made the very frame of Nature quiver ; 
And ev'ry thrilling nerve and fibre feel 
So ague-like a shiver. 

For over all there hung a cloud of fear, 
A sense of mystery the spirit daunted ; 
And said, as plain as whisper in the ear, 
The place is Haunted ! 



THE HAUNTED HOUSE. 181 

If but a rat had linger'd in the house, 
To lure the thought into a social channel ! 
But not a rat remain'd, or tiny mouse, 
To squeak behind the panel. 

Huge drops rolFd down the walls, as if they 

wept ; 
And where the cricket used to chirp so shrilly. 
The toad was squatting, and the lizard crept 
On that damp hearth and chilly. 

For years no cheerful blaze had sparkled there, 
Or glanced on coat of buff or knightly metal ; 
The slug was crawling on the vacant chair, — 
The snail upon the settle. 

The floor was redolent of mould and must. 
The fungus in the rotten seams had quicken'd ; 
While on the oaken table coats of dust 
Perennially had thicken'd. 

No mark of leathern jack or metal cann, 
No cup — no horn — no hospitable token, — 
All social ties between that board and Man 
Had long ago been broken. 

There was so foul a rumour in the air. 
The shadow of a Presence so atrocious ; 
No human creature could have feasted there, 
Even the most ferocious. 



182 THE HAUNTED HOUSE. 

For over all there hung a cloud of fear, 
A sense of mysterj the spirit daunted, 
And said, as plain as whisj^er in the ear, 
The place is Haunted ! 



PART III. 

'Tis hard for human actions to account, 
"Whether from reason or from impulse only — 
But some internal prompting bade me mount 
The gloomy stairs and lonely. 

Those gloomy stairs, so dark, and damp, and cold, 
With odours as from bones and relics carnal. 
Deprived of rite, and consecrated mould. 
The chapel vault, or charnel. 

Those dreary stairs, where with the sounding stress 
Of ev'ry step so many echoes blended, 
The mind, with dark misgivings, fear'd to guess 
How many feet ascended. 

The tempest with its spoils had drifted in. 
Till each unwholesome stone was darkly spotted. 
As thickly as the leopard's dappled skin. 
With leaves that rankly rotted. 



THE HAUNTED HOUSE. 183 

The air was thick — and in the ujDper gloom 
The bat — or something in its shape — was winging ; 
And on the wall, as chilly as a tomb, 
The Death's-Head moth was chnging. 

That mystic moth, which, with a sense profound 
Of all unholy presence, augurs truly ; 
And with a grim significance flits round 
The taper burning bluely. 

Such omens in the place there seem'd to be, 
At ev'ry crooked turn, or on the landing. 
The straining eyeball was prepared to see 
Some Apparition standing. 

For over all there hung a cloud of fear, 
A sense of mystery the spirit daunted. 
And said, as plain as whisper in the ear, 
The place is Haunted ! 

Yet no portentous Shape the sight amazed ; 
Each object plain, and tangible, and valid ; 
But from their tarnish'd frames dark Figures 

gazed. 
And Faces spectre-pallid. 

Not merely with the mimic life that lies 
Within the compass of Art's simulation ; 
Their souls w^ere looking thro' their painted eye* 
With awful speculation. 



184 THE HAUNTED HOUSE. 

On ev'ry lip a speechless horror dwelt ; 
On ev'ry brow the burthen of affliction; 
The old Ancestral Spirits knew and felt 
The House's malediction. 

Such earnest woe their features overcast, 
They might have stirr'd, or sigh'd, or wept, or 

spoken ; 
But, save the hollow moaning of the blast, 
The stillness was unbroken. 

No other sound or stir of life was there. 
Except my steps in solitary clamber. 
From flight to flight, from humid stair to stair, 
From chamber into chamber. 

Deserted rooms of luxury and state. 
That old magnificence had richly furnish'd 
With pictures, cabinets of ancient date, 
And carvings gilt and burnish'd. 

jEich hangings, storied by the needle's art, 
With scripture history, or classic fable ; 
But all had faded, save one ragged part, 
Where Cain was slaying Abel. 

The silent waste of mildew and the moth 
Had marr'd the tissue with a partial ravage ; 
But undecaying frown'd upon the cloth 
Each feature stern and savage. 



THE HAUNTED HOUSE. 185 

The sky was pale ; the cloud a thing of doubt ; 
Some hues were fresh, and some decayed and 

duller ; 
But still the Bloody Hand shone strangely out 
With vehemence of colour ! 

The Bloody Hand that with a lurid stain 
■ Shone on the dusty floor, a dismal token. 
Projected from the casement's painted pane, 
Where all beside was broken. 

The Bloody Hand significant of crime, 
That glaring on the old heraldic banner. 
Had kept its crimson unimpair'd by time. 
In such a wondrous manner ! 

O'er all there hung the shadow of a fear, 
A sense of mystery the spirit daunted, 
And said, as plain as whisper in the ear. 
The place is Haunted ! 

The Death- Watch tick'd behind the panel'd oak, 
Inexplicable tremors shook the arras. 
And echoes strange and mystical awoke. 
The fancy to embarrass. 

Prophetic hints that fill'd the soul with dread. 
But thro' one gloomy entrance pointing mostly, 
The while some secret inspiration said, 
That Chamber is the Ghostly ! 



186 THE HAUNTED HOUSE. 

Across the door no gossamer festoon 
Swung pendulous — no web — no dusty fringes, 
No silky chrysalis or white cocoon 
About its nooks and hinges. 

The spider shunn'd the interdicted room, 
The moth, the beetle, and the fly were banish'd, 
And where the sunbeam fell athwart the gloom 
The very midge had vanish'd. 

One lonely ray that glanced upon a Bed, 
As if with awful aim direct and certain, 
To show the Bloody Hand in burning red 
Embroider'd on the curtain. 

And yet no gory stain was on the quilt — 
The pillow, in its place had slowly rotted ; 
The floor alone retain'd the trace of guilt, 
Those boards obscurely spotted. 

Obscurely spotted to the door, and thence 
With mazy doubles to the grated casement — 
Oh what a tale they told of fear intense, 
Of horror and amazement ! 

What human creature in the dead of night 
Had coursed like hunted hare that cruel dis- 
tance ? 
Had sought the door, the window, in his flight, 
Striving for dear existence ? 



THE HAUNTED HOUSE. 187 

What shrieking Spirit in that bloody room 
Its mortal frame had violently quitted ? — 
Across the sunbeam, with a sudden gloom, 
A ghostly Shadow flitted. 

Across the sunbeam, and along the wall. 
But painted on the air so very dimly, 
It hardly veil'd the tapestry at all. 
Or portrait frowning grimly. 

O'er all there hung the shadow of a fear 
A sense of mystery the spirit daunted. 
And said, as plain as whisper in the ear, 
The place is Haunted ! 



THE BRIDGE OF SIGHS. 

" Drown'd ! drown'd ! " — Hamlet. 

One more unfortunate, 
"Weary of breath, 
Rashly huportunate. 
Gone to her death ! 

Take her up tenderly, 
Lift her with care ; 
Fashion'd so slenderly, 
Young, and so fair ! 

Look at her garments 
Clinging like cerements ; 
Whilst the wave constantly 
Drips from her clothing ; 
Take her up instantly, 
Loving, not loathing. — 

Touch her not scornfully ; 
Think of her mournfully, 
Gently and humanly : 
Not of the stains of her. 
All that remains of her 
Now is pure womanly. 



THE BRIDGE OF SIGHS. 189 

Make no deep scrutiny 
Into her mutiny 
Rash and undutiful : 
Past all dishonour, 
Death has left on her 
Only the beautiful. 

Still, for all slips of hers, 
One of Eve's family — 
Wipe those poor lips of hers 
Oozing so clammily. 

Loop up her tresses 
Escaped from the comb, 
Her fair auburn tresses ; 
"Whilst wonderment guesses 
Where was her home ? 

Who was her father ? 
Who was her mother ? 
Had she a sister ? 
Had she a brother ? 
Or was there a dearer one 
Still, and a nearer one 
Yet, than all other ? 

Alas ! for the rarity 
Of Christian charity 
Under the sun ! 



190 THE BRIDGE OF SIGHS. 

Oh ! it was pitiful ! 
Near a whole citj full, 
Home she had none. 



Sisterly, brotherly, 
Fatherly, motherly 
Feelings had changed : 
Love, by harsh evidence. 
Thrown from its eminence ; 
Even God's providence 
Seeming estranged. • 

Where the lamps quiver 

So far in the river, 

With many a light 

From window and casement. 

From garret to basement, 

She stood, with amazement, 

Houseless by night. 

The bleak wind of March 
Made her tremble and shiver ; 
But not the dark arch, 
Or the black flowing river : 
Mad from life's history, 
Glad to death's mystery. 
Swift to be hurl'd— 
Any where, any where 
Out of the world ! 



THE BRIDGE OF SIGHS. 191 

In she plunged boldly, 
No matter how coldly 
The rough river ran, — 
Over the brink of it, 
Picture it — think of it. 
Dissolute Man ! 
Lave in it, drink of it, 
Then, if you can ! 

Take her up tenderly. 
Lift her with care ; 
Fashion'd so slenderly, 
Young, and so fair ! 

Ere her limbs frigidly 
Stiffen too rigidly. 
Decently, — kindly, — 
Smooth, and compose them ; 
And her eyes, close them. 
Staring so blindly ! 

Dreadfully staring 
Thro' muddy impurity, 
As when with the daring 
Last look of despairing 
Fix'd on futurity. 

Perishing gloomily, 
Spurr'd by contumely, 



192 THE BRIDGE OF SIGHS. 

Cold inhumanity, 
Burning insanity, 
Into her rest. — 
Cross her hands humbly 
As if praying durably, 
Over her breast ! 

Owning her weakness, 
Her evil behaviour, 
And leaving, with meekness, 
Her sins to her Saviour ! 



THE SONG OF THE SHIRT. 

With fingers weary and worn, 

With eyelids heavy and red, 
A woman sat in unwomanly rags, 

Plying her needle and thread — 
Stitch! stitch! stitch! 
In poverty, hunger, and dirt. 

And still with a voice of dolorous pitch 
She sang the " Song of the Shirt !" 

" Work ! work ! work ! 

While the cock is crowing aloof! 

And work — work — work. 
Till the stars shine through the roof I 
It 's Oh ! to be a slave 

Along with the barbarous Turk, 
Where woman has never a soul to save, 

If this is Christian work ! 

a '^ork — work — work 

Till the brain begins to swim"; 

Work — work — work 
Till the eyes are heavy and dim I 

VOL. I. 13 



194 THE SONG OF THE SHIRT. 

Seam, and gusset, and band, 

Band, and gusset, and seam, 
Till over the buttons I fall -asleep, 

And sew them on in a dream ! 

" Oh, Men, with Sisters dear ! 

Oh, Men, with Mothers and Wives ! 
It is not linen you 're wearing out, 
But human creatures' lives ! 

Stitch — stitch — stitch, 
In poverty, hunger, and dirt, 
Sewing at once, with a double thread, 
A Shroud as well as a Shirt. 

'< But why do I talk of Death ? 
That Phantom of grisly bone, 
I hardly fear his terrible shape. 
It seems so like my own — 
It seems so like my own. 
Because of the fasts I keep ; 
Oh, God ! that bread should be so dear, 
And flesh and blood so cheap ! 

" Work — work — work ! * 

My labour never flags ; 
And what are its wages ? A bed of straw, 

A crust of bread — and rags. 
That shatter'd roof — and this naked floor — 

A table — a broken chair — 
And a wall so blank, my shadow I thank 

For sometimes falling there ! 



THE SONG OF THE SHIRT. l'-'5 

" Work — work — work ! 

From weary chime to chime, • 

Work — work — work — . 
As prisoners work for crime ! 

Band, and gusset, and seam, 

Seam, and gusset, and band, 
Till the heart is sick, and the brain benunibM^ 

As well as the weary hand. 

" Work — work — work. 

In the dull December light. 

And work — work — work, 
When the weather is warm and bright — 
While underneath the eaves 

The brooding swallows cling 
As if to show me their sunny backs 

And twit me with the spring. 

^' Oh ! but to breathe the breath 

Of the cowslip and primrose sweet — 

With the sky above my head. 
And the grass beneath my feet, 
For only one short hour 

To feel as I used to feel, 
Before I knew the woes of want 

And the walk that costs a meal ! 

" Oh ! but for one short hour ! 

A respite however brief! 
No blessed leisure for Love or Hope, 

But only time for Grief! 



196 . THE SONG OF THE SHIRT. 

A little weeping would ease my heart, 

But in their briny bed 
My tears must stop, for every drop 

Hinders needle and thread ! " 

With fingers weary and worn, 
With eyelids heavy and red, 
A woman sat in unwomanly rags, 
Plying her needle and thread — 

Stitch! stitch! stitch! 
In poverty, hunger, and dirt. 
And still with a voice of dolorous pitch, 
Would that its tone could reach the Rich ! 
She sang this " Song of the Shirt!" 



THE LADY'S DREAM. 

The ladj lay in her bed, 

Her couch so warm and soft, 
But her sleep was restless and broken still ; 

For turning often and oft 
From side to side, she mutter'd and moan'd, 

And toss'd her arms aloft. 

At last she startled up, 

And gazed on the vacant air. 
With a look of awe, as if she saw 

Some dreadful phantom there — 
And then in the pillow she buried her face 

From visions ill to bear. 

The very curtain shook. 

Her terror was so extreme ; 
And the light that fell on the broider'd quilt, 

Kept a tremulous gleam ; 
And her voice was hollow, and shook as sli* 

cried : — 
" Oh me ! that awful dream ! 



198 THE lady's dkeam. 

" That weary, weary walk, 

In the churchyard's dismal ground ! 
And those horrible things, with shady wings, 

That came and flitted round, — 
Death, death, and nothing but death, 

In every sight and sound ! 

" And oh ! those maidens young. 

Who wrought in that dreary room. 

With figures drooping and spectres thin. 

And cheeks without a bloom ; — [pi'ide, 

And the Voice that cried, ' For the pomp . of 
We haste to an early tomb ! 

*' ' For the pomp and pleasure of Pride, 

We toil like Afric slaves, 
And only to earn a home at last, 

Where yonder cypress waves;' — 
And then they pointed — I never saw 

A ground so full of graves ! 

^And still the coffins came, 

With their sorrowful trains and slow ; 
Coffin after coffin still, 

A sad and sickening show ; 
From grief exempt, I never had dreamt 

Of such a World of Woe ! 

■^ Of the hearts that daily break, 
Of the tears that hourly fall, 



THE lady's dream. 199 

Of the many, many troubles of life, 

That grieve this earthly ball — 
Disease and Hunger, and Pain, and Want, 

But now I dreamt of them all ! 

" For the blind and the cripple were there, 
And the babe that pined for bread, 

And the houseless man, and the widow poor 
Who begged — to bury the dead ; 

The naked, alas, that I might have clad, 
The famish'd I might have fed ! 

" The sorrow I might have soothed, 

And the unregarded tears ; 
For many a thronging shape was there, 

From long forgotten years. 
Aye, even the poor rejected Moor, 

Who rais'd my childish fears ! 

" Each pleading look, that long ago 

I scann'd with a heedless eye. 
Each face was gazing as plainly there. 

As when I pass'd it by : 
Woe, woe for me if the past should be 

Thus present when I die ! 

" No need of sulphureous lake,"^ 
No need. of fiery coal. 
But only that crowd of human kind 
Who wanted pity and dole — 



200 THE lady's dream. 

In everlasting retrospect — 
Will wring my sinful soul ! 

"Alas ! I have walk'd through life 

Too heedless where I trod ; 
Nay, helping to trample my fellow worm, 

And fill the burial sod — 
Forgetting that even the sparrow falls 

Not unmark'd of God ! 

" I drank the richest draughts ; 

And ate whatever is good — 
Fish, and flesh, and fowl, and fruit, 

Supplied my hungry mood ; 
But I never remember'd the wretched ones 

That starve for want of food ! 

" I dress'd as the noble dress. 

In cloth of silver and gold. 
With silk, and satin, and costly furs. 

In many an ample fold ; 
But I never remember'd the naked limbs 

That froze with winter's cold. 

" The wounds I might have heal'd ! 

The human sorrow and smart ! 
And yet it never was in my soul 

To play so ill a part : 
But evil is wrought by want of Thought, 

As well as want of Heart ! " 



THE lady's dream. 201 

She clasp'd her fervent hands, 

And the tears began to stream ; 
Large, and bitter, and fast they fell, 

Remorse was so extreme ; 
And yet, oh yet, that many a Dame 

Would dream the Lady's Dream ! 



THE WORKHOUSE CLOCK. 

AN ALLEGORY. 

There 's a murmur in the air, 
A noise in everj street — 
The murmur of many tongues, 
The noise of numerous feet — 
While round the Workhouse door 
The Labouring Classes flock. 
For why ? the Overseer of the Poor 
Is setting the Workhouse Clock. 

Who does not hear the tramp 
Of thousands speeding along 
Of either sex and various stamp, 
Sickly, crippled, or strong, 
Walking, limping, creeping 
From court, and alley, and lane, 
But all in one direction sweeping 
Like rivers that seek the main ? 
Who does not see them sally 
From mill, and garret, and room, 
In lane, and court and alley. 



THE WORKHOUSE CLOCK. 203 

From homes in poverty's lowest valley, 
Furnished with shuttle and loom — 
Poor slaves of Civilization's galley — 
And in the road and footways rally, 
As if for the Day of Doom ? 
Some, of hardly human form, 
Stunted, crooked, and crippled by toil; 
Dingy with smoke and dust and oil. 
And smirch'd besides with vicious soil. 
Clustering, mustering, all in a swarm. 
Father, mother, and careful child. 
Looking as if it had never smiled — 
The Sempstress, lean, and weary, and wan, 
With only the ghosts of garments on — 
The Weaver, her sallow neighbour, 
The grim and sooty Artisan ; 
Every soul — child, woman, or man, 
Who lives — or dies — by labour. 

Stirred by an overwhelming zeal, 
And social impulse, a terrible throng ! 
Leaving shuttle, and needle, and wheel, 
Furnace, and grindstone, spindle, and reel, 
Thread, and yarn, and iron, and steel — 
Yea, rest and the yet untasted meal — 
Gushing, rushing, crushing along, 
A very torrent of Man ! 
Urged by the sighs of sorrow and wrong. 
Grown at last to a hurricane strong, 
Stop its course who can ! 



204 THE WORKHOUSE CLOCK. 

Stop who can its onward course 

And irresistible moral force ; 

O ! vain and idle dream ! 

For surely as men are all akin, 

Whether of fair or sable skin, 

According to Nature's scheme, 

That Human Movement contains within 

A Blood-Power stronger than Steam. 

Onward, onward, with hasty feet. 
They swarm — and westward still — 
Masses born to drink and eat, 
But starving amidst Whitechapel's meat, 
And famishing down Cornhill ! 
Through the Poultry — but still unfed — 
Christian Charity, hang your head ! 
Hungry — passing the Street of Bread ; 
Thirsty— the Street of Milk ; 
Ragged — beside the Ludgate Mart, 
So gorgeous, through Mechanic- Art, 
With cotton, and wool, and silk ! 

At last, before that door 

That bears so many a knock 

Ere ever it opens to Sick or Poor, 

Like sheep they huddle and flock — 

And would that all the Good and Wise 

Could see the Million of hollow eyes. 

With a gleam derived from Hope and the skies, 

XJpturn'd to the Workhouse Clock ! 



THE WORKHOUSE CLOCK. 205 

Oh ! that the Parish Powers, 
Who regulate Labour's hours, 
The daily amount of human trial, 
Weariness, pain, and self-denial. 
Would turn from the artificial dial 
That striketh ten or eleven. 
And go, for once, by that older one 
That stands in the light of Nature's sun 
And takes its time from Heaven ! 



1 



THE LAY OF THE LABOURER. 

A SPADE ! a rake ! a hoe ! 

A pickaxe, or a bill ! 
A hook to reap, or a scythe to mow, 

A flail, or what ye will — 
And here 's a ready hand 

To ply the needful tool, 
And skill'd enough, by lessons rough. 

In Labour's rugged school. 

To hedge, or dig the ditch. 

To lop or fell the tree, 
To lay the swarth on the sultry field. 

Or plough the stubborn lea ; 
The harvest stack to bind, 

The wheaten rick to thatch, 
And never fear in my pouch to find 

The tinder or the match. 

To a flaming barn or farm 

My fancies never roam ; 
The fire I yearn to kindle and burn 

Is on the hearth of Home ; 



THE LAY OF THE LABOURER. 207 

Where children huddle and crouch 

Through dark long winter days, 
Where starving children huddle and crouch, 

To see the cheerful rays, 
A-glowing on the haggard cheek, 

And not in the haggard's blaze ! 

To Him who sends a drought 

To parch the fields forlorn, 
The rain to flood the meadows with mud, 

The blight to blast the corn, 
To Him I leave to guide 

The bolt in its crooked path, 
To strike the miser's rick, and show 

The skies blood-red with wrath, 

A spade ! a rake ! a hoe ! 

A pickaxe, or a bill ! 
A hook to reap, or a scythe to mow, 

A flail, or what ye will — 
The corn to thrash, or the hedge to plash, 

The market-team to drive, 
Or mend the fence by the 'cover side, 

And leave the game alive. 

Aye, only give me work. 

And then you need not fear 
That I shall snare his worship's hare. 

Or kill his grace's deer ; 
Break into his lordship's house. 



208 THE LAY OF THE LABOURER. 

To steal the plate so rich ; 
Or leave the yeoman that had a purse 
To welter m a ditch. 

Wherever Nature needs, 

Wherever Labour calls, 
No job I '11 shirk of the hardest work, 

To shun the workhouse walls ; 
Where savage laws begrudge 

The pauper babe its breath, 
And doom a wife to a widow's life, 

Before her partner's death. 

My only claim is this. 

With labour stiff and stark, 
By lawful turn my living to earn, 

Between the light and dark ; 
My daily bread, and nightly bed, 

My bacon, and drop of beer — 
But all from the hand that holds the land, 

And none from the overseer ! 

No parish money, or loaf. 

No pauper badges for me, 
A son of the soil, by right of toil 

Entitled to my fee. 
No alms I ask, give me my task : 

Here are the arm, the leg. 
The strength, the sinews of a Man, 

To work, and not to beg. 



THE LAY OF THE ,L4B0UREE. 209 

Still one of Adam's heirs, 

Though doom'd by chance of birth 
To dress so mean, and to eat the lean, 

Instead of the fat of the earth ; 
To make such humble meals 

As honest labour can, 
A bone and a crust, with a grace to God, 

And little thanks to man ! 

A spade ! a rake ! a hoe ! 

A pickaxe, or a bill ! 
A hook to reap, or a scythe to mow, 

A flail, or what ye will — 
Whatever the tool to ply. 

Here is a willing drudge. 
With muscle and limb, and woe to him 

Who does their pay begrudge ! 

Who every weekly score 

Docks labour's little mite, 
Bestows on the poor at the temple door, 

But robb'd them over night. 
The very shilling he hoped to save. 

As health and morals fail. 
Shall visit me in the New Bastile, 

The Spital, or the Gaol ! 
VOL. I. 14 



THE LEE-SHORE. 

Sleet ! and Hail ! and Thunder ! 

And ye Winds that rave, 
Till the sands thereunder 

Tinge the sullen wave — 

Winds, that like a Demon, 
Howl with horrid note • 

Round the toiling Seaman, 
In his tossing boat — 

From -his humble dwelling. 

On the shingly shore, 
Where the billows swelling, 

Keep such hollow roar — 

From that weeping Woman, 

Seeking with her cries 
Succour superhuman 

From the frowning skies — 

From the Urchin pining 
For his Father's knee — 

From the lattice shining, 
Drive him out to sea ! 



THE LEE-SHORE. 211 

Let broad leagues dissever 

Him from yonder foam ; — 
Oh, God ! to think Man ever 

Comes too near his Home ! 



THE DEATH-BED. 

We watch'd her breathing thro' the night, 

Her breathing soft and low, 
As in her breast the wave of hfe 

Kept heaving to and fro. 

So silently we seem'd to speak, 

So slowly moved about, 
As we had lent her half our powers 

To eke her living out. 

Our very hopes belied our fears. 

Our fears our hopes belied — 
We thought her dying when she slept, 

And sleeping when she died. 

For when the morn came dim and sad, 
And chill with early showers, 

Her quiet eyelids closed — she had 
Another morn than ours. 



213 



LINES 

ON SEEING MY WIFE AND TWO CHILDREN 
SLEEPING IN THE SAME CHAMBER. 

And has the earth lost its so spacious round, 
The sky its blue circumference above, 
That in this little chamber there is found 
Both earth and heaven — my universe of love ! 
All that my God can give me or remove, 
Here sleeping, save myself, in mimic death. 
Sweet that in this small compass I behove 
To live their living and to breathe their breath ! 
Almost I wish that with one common sigh 
We might resign all mundane care and strife, 
And seek together that transcendent sky. 
Where Father, Mother, Children, Husband, Wife, 
Together pant in everlasting hfe ! 

CoBLENTZ, Nov. 1835. 



214 



TO MY DAUGHTER, 

ON HER BIRTHDAY. 



Dear Fanny ! nine long years ago, 
While yet the morning sun was low, 
And rosy with the eastern glow 

The landscape smiled ; 
Whilst low'd the newly-waken'd herds — 
Sweet as the early song of birds, 
I heard those first, delightful words, 

"Thou hast a child!" 



II. 

Along with that uprising dew 

Tears glisten'd in my eyes, though few, 

To hail a dawning quite as new 

To me, as Time : 
It was not sorrow — not annoy — 
But like a happy maid, though coy, 
With grief-like welcome, even Joy 

Forestalls its prime. 



TO MY DAUGHTER. 215 



III. 

So may'st thou live, dear ! many years, 

In all the bliss that life endears, 

Not without smiles, nor yet from tears, 

Too strictly kept : 
When first thy infant littleness 
I folded in my fond caress, 
The greatest proof of happiness 

Was this — I wept. 

Sept. 1839. 



TO A CHILD 

EMBEACING HIS MOTHER. 
I. 

Love thy mother, little one ! 
Kiss and clasp ,her neck again, — 
Hereafter she may have a son 
Will kiss and clasp her neck in vain. 
Love thy mother, little one ! 



Gaze upon her living eyes. 
And mirror back her love for thee, — 
Hereafter thou may'st shudder sighs 
To meet them when they cannot see. 
Gaze upon her living eyes ! 

III. 

Press her lips the while they glow 
With love that they have often told, — 
Hereafter thou may'st press in woe, 
And kiss them till thine own are cold. 
Press her lips the while they glow^ ! 



TO A CHILD. 



IV. 

Oh, revere her raven hair ! 
Altho' it be not silver-gray ; 
Too early Death, led on by Care, 
May snatch save one dear lock away. 
Oh ! revere her raven hair ! 

V. 

Pray for her at eve and morn, 
That Heaven may long the stroke defer, 
For thou may'st live the hour forlorn 
When thou wilt ask to die with her. 
Pray for her at eve and morn ! 



217 



STANZAS. 

I. 

Farewell Life ! my senses swim, 
And the world is growing dim : 
Thronging shadows cloud the light, 
Like the advent of the night — 
Colder, colder, colder still. 
Upward steals a vapour chill ; 
Strong the earthy odour grows — 
I smell the mould above the rose ! 

II. 

Welcome Life ! the Spirit strives ! 
Strength returns and hope revives ; 
Cloudy fears and shapes forlorn 
Fly like shadows at the morn, — 
O'er the earth there comes a bloom ; 
Sunny hght for sullen gloom, 
Warm perfume for vapour cold — 
I smell the rose above the mould ! 



April, 1845. 



219 



TO A FALSE FRIEND. 

I. 
Our hands have met, but not our hearts ; 
Our hands will never meet again. 
Friends, if we have ever been, 
Friends we cannot now remain : 
I only know I loved you once, 
I only know I loved in vain ; 
Our hands have met, but not our hearts ; 
Our hands will never meet again ! 

II. 

Then farewell to heart and hand ! 

I would our hands had never met : 

Even the outward form of love 

Must be resign'd with some regret. 

Friends, we still might seem to be, 

If my wrong could e'er forget 

Our hands have join'd but not our hearts : 

I would our hands had never met ! 



220 



THE POET'S PORTION. 

What is a mine— a treasury — a dower — 
A magic talisman of mighty power? 
A poet's wide possession of the earth. 
He has th' enjoyment of a flower's birth 
Before its budding — ere the first red streaks, — 
And Winter cannot rob him of their cheeks. 
Look — if his dawn be not as other men's ! 
Twenty bright flushes — ere another kens 
The first of sunlight is abroad — he sees 
Its golden 'lection of the topmost trees, 
And opes the splendid fissures of the morn. 
When do his fruits delay, when doth his corn 
Linger for harvesting ? Before the leaf 
Is commonly abroad, in his piled sheaf 
The flagging poppies lose their ancient flame. 
No sweet there is, no pleasure I can name, 
But he will sip it first — before the lees. 
'Tis his to taste rich honey, — ere the bees 
Are busy with the brooms. He may forestall 
June's rosy advent for his coronal ; 
Before th' expectant buds upon the bough. 
Twining his thoughts to bloom upon his brow. 



THE poet's pohtion. 221 

Oh ! blest to see the flower in its seed, 

Before its leafy presence ; for indeed 

Leaves are but wings, on which the summer flies, 

And each thing perishable fades and dies. 

Escaped in thought ; but his rich thinkings be 

Like overflows of immortality. 

So that what there is steep'd shall perish never, 

But live and bloom, and be a joy for ever. 



SONG. 

Lady, leave thy silken thread 

And flowery tapestrie : 
There 's living roses on the bush, 

And blossoms on the tree ; 
Stoop where thou wilt, thy careless hand 

Some random bud will meet ; 
Thou canst not tread, but thou wilt find 

The daisy at thy feet. 

'Tis like the birthday of the world, 

When earth was born in bloom ; 
The light is made of many dyes, 

The air is all perfume ; 
There 's crimson buds, and white and blue- 

The very rainbow showers 
Have turn'd to blossoms where they fell, 

And sown the earth with flowers. 

There 's fairy tulips in the east, 

The garden of the sun ; 
The very streams reflect the hues, 

And blossom as they run : 



SONG. 223 



While Morn opes like a crimson rose, 
Still wet with pearly showers ; 

Then, lady, leave the silken thread 
Thou twinest into flowers ! 



TIME, HOPE, AND MEMORY. 

I HEARD a gentle maiden, in the spring, 
Set her sweet sighs to music, and thus sing : 
" Fly through -the world, and I will follow thee, 
Only for looks that may turn back on me ; 

Only for roses that your chance may throw — 
Though wither'd — I will wear them on my 

brow, 
To be a thoughtful fragrance to my brain ; 
Warm'd with such love, that they will bloom 
again. 

Thy love before thee, I must tread behind, 
Kissing thy foot-prints, though to me unkind ; 
But trust not all her fondness, though it seem. 
Lest thy true love should rest on a false^.dream. 

Her face is smiling, and her voice is sweet ; 
But smiles betray, and music sings deceit ; 
And words speak false ; — yet, if they welcome 

prove, 
I '11 be their echo, and repeat their love. 



TIME, HOPE, AND MEMORY. 225 

Only if waken'd to sad truth, at last, 
The bitterness to come, and sweetness past ; 
When thou art vext, then, turn again, and see 
Thou hast loved Hope, but Memory loved 
thee." 

VOL. I. 15 



FLOWERS. 

I WILL not have the mad Clytie, 
Whose head is turn'd by the sun ; 
The tulip is a courtly quean, 
Whom, therefore I will shun ; 
The cowslip is a country wench, 
The violet is a nun ; — 
But I will woo the dainty rose, 
The queen of every one. 

The pea is but a wanton witch, 
In too much haste to wed. 
And clasps her rings on every hand ; 
The wolfsbane I should dread ; — 
Nor will I dreary rosemarye, 
That always mourns the dead ; — 
But I will woo the dainty rose, 
With her cheeks of tender red. 

The lily is all in white, like a saint, 

And so is no mate for me — 

And the daisy's cheek is tipp'd with a blush, 

She is of such low degree ; 



FLOWERS. 



227 



Jasmine is sweet, and has many loves, 
And the broom 's betroth'd to the bee ; — 
But I will plight with the dainty rose, 
For fairest of all is she. 



TO — . 

Still glides the gentle streamlet on, 
With shifting current new and strange ; 
The water that was here is gone, 
But those green shadows never change. 

Serene or ruffled by the storm. 
On present waves, as on the past 
The mirror'd grove retains its form, 
The self-same trees their semblance cast. 

The hue each fleeting globule wears, 
That drop bequeaths it to the next ; 
One picture still the. surface bears. 
To illustrate the murmur'd text. 

So, love, however time may flow, 
Fresh hours pursuing those that flee, 
One constant image still shall show. 
My tide of life is true to thee. 



229 



TO . 

Let us make a leap, ray dear, 
In our love, of many a year. 
And date it very far away, 
On a bright clear summer day. 
When the heart was like a sun 
To itself, and falsehood none ; 
And the rosy lips a part 
Of the very loving heart. 
And the shining of the eye 
But a sign to know it by ; — 
When my fauhs were all forgiven, 
And my life deserved of Heaven. 
Dearest, let us reckon so, 
And love for all that long ago ; 
Each absence count a year complete, 
And keep a birthday when we meet. 



230 



TO . 

1 LOVE thee — I love thee ! 

'Tis all that I can say ; — 
It is my vision in the night, 

My dreaming in the day ; 
The very echo of my heart, 

The blessing when I pray : 
I love thee — I love thee ! 

Is all that I can say. 

I love thee — I love thee ! 

Is ever on my tongue ; 
In all my proudest poesy 

That chorus still is sung; 
It is the verdict of my eyes, 

Amidst the gay and young : 
I love thee — I love thee ! 

A thousand maids among. 

I love thee — I love thee ! 

Thy bright and hazel glance, 
The mellow lute upon those lips, 

Whose tender tones entrance ; 



TO . 231 

But most, dear heart of hearts, thy proofs 
That still these words enhance, 

I love thee — I love thee ! 
Whatever be thy chance. 



TO 



I. 
Welcome, dear Heart, and a most kind good- 
morrow ; 
The day is gloomy, but our looks shall shine : — 
Flowers I have none to give thee, but I borrow 
Their sweetness in a verse to speak for thine. 

II. 
Here are red roses, gather'd at thy cheeks, 
The white were all too happy to look white : 
For love the rose, for faith the lily speaks ; 
It withers in false hands, but here 'tis bright ! 

III. 
Dost love sweet Hyacinth ? Its scented leaf 
Curls manifold, — all love's delights blow double : 
'Tis said this flow'ret is inscribed with grief, — 
But let that hint of a forgotten trouble. 



I pluck'd the Primrose at night's dewy noon ; 
Like Hope, it show'd its blossoms in the night ; — 



TO 



233 



'Twas, like Endymion, watching for the Moon ! 
And here are sunflowers, amorous of light ! 



V. 

These golden Buttercups are April's seal, — 
The Daisy stars her constellations be : 
These grew so lowly, I was forced to kneel, 
Therefore I pluck no Daisies but for thee ! 



Here 's Daisies for the morn, Primrose for gloom, 
Pansies and Roses for the noontide hours : — 
A wight once made a dial of their bloom, — 
So may thy life be measured out by flowers ! 



TO . 

COMPOSED AT ROTTERDAM. 

I GAZE upon a city, — 
A city new and strange, 
Down many a watery vista 
My fancy takes a range ; 
From side to side I saunter, 
And wonder where I am ; 
And can you be in England, 
And / at Rotterdam ! 

Before me lie dark waters 
In broad canals and deep, 
Whereon the silver moonbeams 
Sleep, restless in their sleep ; 
A sort of vulgar Venice 
Reminds me where I am ; 
Yes, yes, you are in England, 
And I 'm at Rotterdam. 

Tall houses with quaint gables. 
Where frequent windows shine. 



TO . 235 

And quays that lead to bridges, 
And trees in formal line. 
And masts of spicy vessels 
From western Surinam, 
All tell me you 're in England, 
But I 'm in Eotterdam. 

Those sailors, how outlandish 
The face and form of each ! 
They deal in foreign gestures, 
And use a foreign speech ; 
A tongue not learn'd near Isis, 
Or studied by the Cam, 
Declares that you 're in England, 
And I 'm at Rotterdam. 

And now across a market 
My doubtful way I trace. 
Where stands a solemn statue, 
The Genius of the place ; 
And to the great Erasmus 
I offer my salaam ; 
Who tells me you 're in England, 
But I 'm at Rotterdam. 

The coffee-room is open — 
I mingle in its crowd, — 
The dominos are noisy — 
The hookahs raise a cloud ; 
The flavour now of Fearon's, 



236 TO — . 

That mingles with my dram, 
Reminds me you 're in England, 
And I 'm at Rotterdam. 



Then here it goes, a bumper — 
The toast it shall be mine, 
In Schiedam, or in sherry, 
Tokay, or hock of Rhine ; 
It well deserves the brightest. 
Where sunbeam ever swam — 
« The Girl I love in England" 
I drink at Rotterdam ! 



March, 1835, 



SEEENADE. 



Ah, sweet, thou little knowest how 

I wake and passionate watches keep ; 
And yet, while I address thee now, 

Methinks thou smilest in thy sleep. 
'Tis sweet enough to make me weep, 

That tender thought of love and thee, 
That while the world is hush'd so deep, 

Thy soul 's perhaps awake to me ! 

II. 

Sleep on, sleep on, sweet bride of sleep ! 

With golden visions for thy dower. 
While I this midnight vigil keep. 

And bless thee in thy silent bower ; 
To ma 'tis sweeter than the power 

Of sleep, and fairy dreams unfurl'd. 
That I alone, at this still hour. 

In patient love outwatch the world. 



238 



VEESES IN AN ALBUM. 



Far above the hollow 
Tempest, and its moan, 
Singeth bright Apollo 
In his golden zone,- — 
Cloud doth never shade him, 
Nor a storm invade him, 
On his joyous throne. 

II. 

So when I behold me 
In an orb as bright, 
How thy soul doth fold me 
In its throne of light ! 
Sorrow never paineth, 
Nor a care attaineth, 
To that blessed height. 



239 



BALLAD. 

I. 

It was not in the winter 
Our loving lot was cast ; 
It was the time of roses, — 
We pluck'd them as we pass'd ! 

II. 

That churlish season never frown'd 
On early lovers yet ! 
Oh, no — the world was newly crown'd 
With flowers when first we met. 

III. 

'Twas twilight, and I bade you go, 
But still you held me fast ; 
It was the time of roses, — 
We pluck'd them as we pass'd! 



240 



BALLAD. 



Spring it is cheery, 

Winter is dreary, 
Green leaves hang, but the brown must fly ; 

When he 's forsaken, 

Wither'd and shaken, 
What can an old man do but die ? 



Love will not clip him, 
Maids will not lip him, 

Maud and Marian pass him by ; 
Youth it is sunny. 
Age has no honey, — 

What can an old man do but die ? 

III. 

June it was jolly, 

O for its folly ! 
A dancing leg and a laughing eye ; 

Youth may be silly, 

Wisdom is chilly, — 
What can an old man do but die ? 



BALLAD. 



IV. 

Friends ihej are scanty, 
Beggars are plenty, 

If he has followers, I know why ; 
Gold 's in his clutches, 
(Buying him crutches !) — 

What can an old man do but die ? 

VOL. I 16 



241 



BALLAD. 

She 's up and gone, the graceless Girl ! 

And robb'd my failing years ; 
My blood before was thin and cold 

But now 'tis turn'd to tears ; — 
My shadow falls upon my grave, 

So near the brink I stand, 
She might have staid a little yet, 

And led me by the hand ! 

Aye, call her on the barren moor, 

And call her on the hill, 
'Tis nothing but the heron's cry, 

And plover's answer shrill ; 
My child is flown on wilder wings, 

Than they have ever spread. 
And I may even walk a waste 

That widen'd when she fled. 

Full many a thankless child has been. 

But never one like mine ; 
Her meat was served on plates of gold, 

Her drink was rosy wine ; 



BALLAD. 243 

But now she '11 share the robin's food, 

And sup the common rill, 
Before her feet will turn again 

To meet her father's will i 



BALLAD. 

Sigh on sad heart, for Love's eclipse 

And Beauty's fairest queen, 
Tho' 'tis not for my peasant lips 

To soil her name between : 
A king might lay his sceptre down, 

But I am poor and nought, 
The brow should wear a golden crown 

That wears her in its thought. 

The diamonds glancing in her hair, 

Whose sudden beams surprise. 
Might bid such humble hopes beware 

The glancing of her eyes ; 
Yet looking once, I look'd too long. 

And if my love is sin. 
Death follows on the heels of wrong, 

And kills the crime within. 

Her dress seem'd wove of lily leaves, 

It was so pure and fine, 
lofty wears, and lowly weaves, 

But hoddan gray is mine ; 



BALLAD. 

And homely liose must step apart, 
Where garter'd princes stand, 

But may he wear my love at heart 
That wins her lily hand ! 

Alas ! there 's fer from russet frize 

To silks and satin gowns. 
But I doubt if God made like degrees, 

In courtly hearts and clowns. 
My father wrong'd a maiden's mirth. 

And brought her cheeks to blame. 
And all that 's lordly of my birth. 

Is my reproach and shame ! 

'Tis vain to Aveep, — 'tis vain to sigh, 

'Tis vain this idle speech. 
For where her happy pearls do lie, 

My tears may never reach ; 
Yet when I 'm gone, e'en lofty pride 

May say of what has been. 
His love was nobly born and died, 

Tho' all the rest was mean ! 

My speech is rude, — but speech is weak 

Such love as mine to tell. 
Yet had I words, I dare not speak, 

So, Lady, fare thee well ; 
I will not wish thy better state 

Was one of low degree. 
But I must weep that partial fate 

Made such a churl of me. 



245 



THE KOMANCE OF COLOGNE. 

'Tis even — on the pleasant banks of Uliine 
The thrush is singing and the dove is cooing; 
A Youth and Maiden on the turf recline 
Alone — and he is wooing. 

Yet woos in vain, for to the voice of love 
No kindly sympathy the Maid discovers, 
Though round them both, and in the air above. 
The tender spirit hovers. 

Untouch'd by lovely Nature and her laws, 
The more he pleads, more coyly she represses ; 
Her lips denies, and now her hand withdraws, 
Rejecting his addresses. 

Fair is she as the dreams young poets weave, 
Bright eyes and dainty lips and tresses curly, 
In outward loveliness a child of Eve, 
But cold as nymph of Lurley. 

The more Love tries her pity to engross, 

The more she chills him with a strange behaviour; 



THE KOMANCE OF COLOGNE. 247 

Now tells her beads, now gazes on the Cross 
And image of the Saviour. 

Forth goes the lover with a farewell moan, 
As from the presence of a thing unhuman ; — 
Oh, what unholj spell hath turn'd to stone 
The young warm heart of woman ! 

* * * * • 

'Tis midnight — and the moonbeam, cold and wan. 
On bower and river quietly is sleeping. 
And o'er the corse of a self-murder'd man 
The Maiden fair is weeping. 

In vain she looks into his glassy eyes, 
No pressure answers to her hands so pressing ; 
In her fond arms impassively he lies, 
Clay-cold to her caressing. 

Despairing, stunn'd, by her eternal loss, 
She flies to succour that may best beseem her 
But, lo ! a frowning figure veils the Cross 
And hides the blest Redeemer ! 

With stern right hand it stretches forth a scroll. 
Wherein she reads, in melancholy letters, 
The cruel, fatal pact that placed her soul 
And her young heart in fetters. 

" Wretch ! sinner ! renegade ! to truth and God, 
Thy holy faith for human love to barter ! " 



248 



THE ROMANCE OF COLOGNE. 



No more she hears, but on the bloody sod 
Sinks, Bigotry's last martyr ! 

And side by side the hapless Lovers lie ; 
Tell me, harsh Priest ! by yonder tragic token, 
What part hath God in such a bond, whereby 
Or hearts or vows are broken ? 



THE KEY, 

A MOORISH ROMANCE. 

" On the east coast, towards Tunis, the Moors still preserve 
the keys of then* ancestors' houses in Spain; to which country 
they still express the hopes of one day returning, and again 
planting the crescent on the ancient walls of the Alhambra." 
Scott's Travels in Morocco and Algiers. 

" Is Spain cloven in such a manner as to want closing? " — 
Sancho Panza. 

The Moor leans on his cushion, 
With the pipe between his lips ; 
And still at frequent intervals 
The sweet sherbet he sips ; 
But, spite of lulling vapour 
And the sober coohng cup, 
The spirit of the swarthy Moor 
Is fiercely kindling up ! 

One hand is on his pistol, 
On its ornamented stock. 
While his finger feels the trigger 
And is busy with the lock — 
The other seeks his atasrhan. 



260 THE KEY. 

And clasps its jewell'd hilt — 
Oh ! much of gore in days of yore 
That crooked blade has spilt ! 

His brows are knit, his eyes of jet 

In vivid blackness roll, 

And gleam with fatal flashes 

Like the fire-damp of the coal ; 

His jaws are set, and through his teeth 

He draws a savage breath, 

As if about to raise the shout 

Of Victory or Death ! 

For why ? the last Zebeck that came 
And moor'd wdthin the Mole, 
Such tidings unto Tunis brought 
As stir his very soul — 
The cruel jar of civil war, 
The sad and stormy reign. 
That blackens like a thundercloud 
The sunny land of Spain ! 

No strife of glorious Chivalry, 

For honour's gain or loss, 

Nor yet that ancient rivalry. 

The Crescent with the Cross. 

No charge of gallant Paladins 

On Moslems stern and stanch ; 

But Christians shedding Christian blood 

Beneath the olive's branch ! 



THE KEY. 251 

A war of horrid parricide, 

And brother killing brother ; 

Yea, like to " dogs and sons of dogs " 

That worry one another. 

But let them bite and tear and fight, 

The more the Katfers slay. 

The sooner Hagar's swarming sons 

Shall make the land a prey ! 

The sooner shall the Moor behold 
Th' Alhambra's pile again ; 
And those who pined in Barbary 
Shall shout for joy in Spain — 
The sooner shall the Crescent wave 
On dear Granada's walls ; 
And proud Mohammed All sit 
Within his father's halls ! 

« AHa-il-alla ! " tiger-like 
Up springs the swarthy Moor, 
And, with a wide and hasty stride, 
Steps o'er the marble floor ; 
Across the hall, till from the wall, 
Where such quaint patterns be, 
With eager hand he snatches down 
An old and massive Key I 

A massive Key of curious shape. 
And dark with dirt and rust. 
And well three weary centuries 



252 THE KEY. 

Tne metal might incrust ! 

For since the King Boabdil fell 

Before the native stock, 

That ancient Key, so quaint to see, 

Hath never been in lock. 

Brought over by the Saracens 

Who fled across the main, 

A token of the secret hope 

Of going back again ; 

From race to race, from hand to hand, 

From house to house it pass'd ; 

O will it ever, ever ope 

The Palace gate at last ? 

Three hundred years and fifty-two 
On post and wall it hung — 
Three hundred years and fifty-two 
A dream to old and young ; 
But now a brighter destiny 
The Prophet's will accords : 
The time is come to scour the rust. 
And lubricate the wards. 

For should the Moor with sword and lance 

At Algesiras land, 

Where is the bold Bernardo now 

Their progress to withstand? 

To Burgos should the Moslem come. 

Where is the noble Cid 



THE KEY. 253 

Five royaUcrowns to topple down 
As gallant Diaz did ? 

Hath Xeres any Pounder now, 

When other weapons fail, 

With club to thrash invaders rash. 

Like barley with a flail? 

Hath Seville any Perez still, 

To lay his clusters low. 

And ride with seven turbans green 

Around his saddle-bow ? 

No ! never more shall Europe see 

Such Heroes brave and bold. 

Such Valour, Faith, and Loyalty, 

As used to shine of old ! 

No longer to one battle cry 

United Spaniards run, 

And with their thronging spears uphold 

The Virgin and her Son ! 

From Cadiz Bay to rough Biscay 

Internal discord dwells. 

And Barcelona bears the scars 

Of Spanish shot and shells. 

The fleets decline, the merchants pine 

For want of foreign trade ; 

And gold is scant ; and Alicante 

Is seal'd by strict blockade I 



254 THE KEY. 

The loyal fly, and Valour falls, ^ 

Opposed by court intrigue ; 

But treachery and traitors thrive, 

Upheld by foreign league ; 

While factions seeking private ends 

By turns usurping reign — 

Well may the dreaming, scheming Moor 

Exulting point to Spain ! 

Well may he cleanse the rusty Key 

With Afric sand and oil, 

And hope an Andalusian home 

Shall recompense the toil ! 

Well may he swear the Moorish spear 

Through wild Castile shall sweep. 

And where the Catalonian sow'd 

The Saracen shall reap ! 

Well may he vow to spurn the Cross 

Beneath the Arab hoof. 

And plant the Crescent yet again 

Above th' Alhambra's roof 

When those from whom St. Jago's name 

In chorus once arose. 

Are shouting Faction's battle-cries. 

And Spain forgets to " Close ! " 

Well may he swear his ataghan 
Shall rout the traitor swarm, 
And carve them into Arabesques 



THE KEY. 255 

That show no human form — 

The blame be theirs whose bloody feuds 

Invite the savage Moor, 

And tempt him with the ancient Key 

To seek the ancient door ! 



FAIR mES. 



O SAW ye not fair Ines ? 

She 's gone into the West, 

To dazzle when the sun is down, 

And rob the world of rest : 

She took our daylight with her. 

The smiles that we love best, 

With morning blushes on her cheek. 

And pearls upon her breast. 



II. 

turn again, fair Ines, 
Before the fall of night, 

For fear the Moon should shine alone, 

And stars unrivall'd bright ; 

And blessed will the lover be 

That walks beneath their light. 

And breathes the love against thy cheek 

1 dare not even write ! 



FAIR INKS. 257 



III. 

Would I had been, fair Ines, 

That gallant cavalier, 

Who rode so gayly by thy side, 

And whisper'd thee so near ! 

Were there no bonny dames at home, 
Or no true lovers here, 
That he should cross the seas to win 
The dearest of the dear ? 

IV. 

I saw thee, lovely Ines, 

Descend along the shore, 

With bands of noble gentlemen, 

And banners waved before ; 

And gentle youth and maidens gay, 

And snowy plumes they wore ; — 

It would have been a beauteous dream, 

— If it had been no more ! 



Alas, alas, fair Ines, 
She went away with song. 
With Music waiting on her steps, 
And shoutings of the throng ; 
But some were sad, and felt no mirth, 
But only Music's wa'ong. 
In sounds that sang Farewell, Farewell, 
To her you 've loved so long. 
VOL. I. 17 



258 FAIR INES. 



VI. 

Farewell, farewell, fair Ines, 

That vessel never bore 

So fair a lady on its deck, 

Nor danced so light before, — 

Alas for pleasure on the sea, 

And sorrow on the shore ! 

The smile that blest one lover's heart 

Has broken many more ! 



THE DEPARTURE OF SUMMER. 

Summer is gone on swallows' wings, 

And earth has buried all her flowers : 

No more the lark, the linnet sings, 

But Silence sits in faded bowers. 

There is a shadow on the plain 

Of Winter ere he comes again, — 

There is in woods a solemn sound 

Of hollow warnings whisper'd round, 

As Echo in her deep recess 

For once had turn'd a prophetess. 

Shuddering Autumn stops to list, 

And breathes his fear in sudden sighs. 

With clouded face, and hazel eyes 

That quench themselves, and hide in mist. 

Yes, Summer 's gone like pageant bright 
Its glorious days of golden light 
Are gone — the mimic suns that quiver. 
Then melt in Time's dark-flowing river. 
Gone the sweetly-scented breeze 
That spoke in music to the trees ; 
Gone for damp and chilly breath. 
As if fresh blown o'er marble seas, 



260 THE DEPARTURE OF SUMMER. 

Or newly from the lungs of Death. — 
Gone its virgin roses' blushes, 
Warm as when Aurora rushes 
Freshly from the god's embrace, 
With all her shame upon her face. 
Old Time hath laid them in the mould ; 
Sure he is blind as well as old, 
Whose hand relentless never spares 
Young cheeks so beauty -bright as theirs ! 
Gone are the flame-eyed lovers now 
From where so blushing-blest they tarried 
Under the hawthorn's blossom-bough, 
Gone ; for Day and Night are married. 
All the light of love is fled : — 
Alas ! .that negro breasts should hide 
The hps that were so rosy red, 
At morning and at even-tide ! 

Delightful Summer ! then adieu 
Till thou shait visit us anew : 
But who without regretful sigh 
Can say, adieu, and see thee fly ? 
Not he that e'er hath felt thy pow'r. 
His joy expanding like a flow'r 
That cometh after rain and snow. 
Looks up at heaven, and learns to glow : — 
Not he that fled froni Babel-strife 
To the green sabbath-iand of life, 
To dodge dull Care 'mid cluster'd trees. 
And cool his forehead in the breeze, — 



THE DEPARTURE OF SUMMER. 

Whose spirit, weary-worn perchance, 
Shook from its wings a weight of grief, 
And perch'd upon an aspen leaf, 
For every breath to make it dance. 

Farewell ! — on wings of sombre stain, 
That blacken in the last blue skies. 
Thou fiy'st ; but thou wilt come again 
On the gay wings of butterflies. 
Spring at thy approach will sprout 
Her new Corinthian beauties out. 
Leaf-woven homes, where twitter-words 
Will grow to songs, and eggs to birds ; 
Ambitious buds shall swell to flowers, 
And April smiles to sunny hours. 
Bright days shall be, and gentle nights 
Full of soft breath and echo-lights. 
As if the god of sun-time kept 
His eyes half-open while he slept. 
Roses shall be where roses were, 
Not shadows, but reality ; 
As if they never perish'd there. 
But slept in immortality : 
Nature shall thrill with new delight, 
And Time's relumined river run 
Warm as young blood, and dazzling bright, 
As if its source were in the sun ! 

But say, hath Winter then no charms ? 
Is there no joy, no gladness warms 



261 



262 THE DEPARTURE 01^ SUMMER. 

His aged heart ? no happy wiles 
To cheat the hoary one to smiles? 
Onward he comes — the cruel North 
Pours his furious whirlwind forth 
Before him — and we breathe the breath 
Of famish'd bears that howl to death. 
Onward he comes from rocks that blanch 
O'er solid streams that never flow 
His tears all ice, his locks all snow, 
Just crept from some huge avalanche — 
A thing half-breathing and half-warm, 
As if one spark began to glow 
Within some statue's marble form, 
Or pilgrim stiifen'd in the storm. 
Oh ! will not Mirth's light arrows fail 
To pierce that frozen coat of mail ? 
Oh ! will not joy but strive in vain 
To light up those glazed eyes again ? 

No ! take him in, and blaze the oak. 
And pour the wine, and warm the ale ; 
His sides shall shake to many a joke. 
His tongue shall thaw in many a tale. 
His eyes grow bright, his heart be gay, 
And even his palsy charm'd away. 
What heeds he then the boisterous shout 
Of angry winds that scold without. 
Like shrewish wives at tavern door ? 
What heeds he then the wild uproar 
Of billows bursting on the shore ? 



THE DEPARTURE OF SUMMER. 263 

In dashing waves, in howling breeze, 
There is a music that can charm him ; 
When safe, and shelter'd, and at ease. 
He hears the storm that cannot harm him. 

But hark ! those shouts ! that sudden din 
Of little hearts that laugh within. 
Oh ! take him where the youngsters play, 
And he will grow as young as they ! 
They come ! they come ! each blue-eyed Sport, 
The Twelfth-Night King and all his court — 
'Tis Mirth fresh crown'd with mistletoe ! 
Music with her merry fiddles, 
Joy " on light fantastic toe," 
Wit with all his jests and riddles, 
Singing and dancing as they go. 
And Love, young Love, among the rest, 
A welcome — nor unbidden guest. 

But still for Summer dost thou grieve? 
Then read our Poets — they shall weave 
A garden of green fancies still. 
Where thy wish may rove at will. 
They have kept for after treats 
The essences of summer sweets. 
And echoes of its songs that wind 
In endless music through the mind : 
They have stamp'd in visible traces 
The " thoughts that breathe," in words that shine — 
The flights of soul in sunny places— 



264 THE DEPARTURE OF SUMMER. 

To greet and company with thine. 

These shall wing thee on to flow'rs — 

The past or future, that shall seem 

All the brighter in thy dream 

For blowing in such desert hours. 

The summer never shines so bright 

As thought of in a winter's night ; 

And the sweetest loveliest rose 

Is in the bud before it blows ; 

The dear one of the lover's heart 

Is painted to his longing eyes, 

In charms she ne'er can realize — 

But when she turns again to part. 

Dream thou then, and bind thy brow 

"With wreath of fancy roses now. 

And drink of Summer in the cup 

Where the Muse hath mix'd it up ; 

The "dance, and song, and sun-burnt mirth," 

With the warm nectar of the earth : 

Drink ! 'twill glow in every vein. 

And thou ghalt dream the winter through : 

Then waken to tlie sun again. 

And find thy Summer Vision true ! 



ODE: 

AUTUMN. 
I. 

I SAW old Autumn in the misty mom 
Stand shadowless like silence, listening 
To silence, for no lonely bird would sing 
Into his hollow ear from woods forlorn, 
Nor lowly hedge nor solitary thorn ; — 
Shaking his languid locks all dewy bright 
With tangled gossamer that fell by night, 
Pearling his coronet of golden corn. 

TI. 

Where are the songs of Summer ? — With the sun. 

Oping the dusky eyelids of the south, 

Till shade and silence waken up as one. 

And Morning sings with a warm odorous mouth. 

Where are the merry birds ? — Away, away, 

On panting wings through the inclement skies, 

Lest owls should prey 

Undazzled at noon-day. 
And tear with horny beak their lustrous eyes. 



266 ode: autumn. 



III. 
Where are the blooms of Summer ? — In the west, 
Blushing their last to the last sunny hours, 
When the mild Eve by sudden Night is prest 
Like tearful Proserpine, snatch'd from her flow'rs 

To a most gloomy breast. 
Where is the pride of Summer, — the green 

prime, — 
The many, many leaves all twinkling? — Three 
On the moss'd elm ; three on the naked lime 
Trembling, — and one upon the old oak tree ! 

Where is the Dryad's immortality ? — 
Gone into mournful cypress and dark yew. 
Or wearing the long gloomy Winter through 

In the smooth holly's green eternity. 

IV. 

The squirrel gloats on his accomplish'd hoard, 
The ants have brimm'd their garners with ripe 
grain. 
And honey bees have stored 
The sweets of Summer in their luscious cells ; 
The swallows all have wing'd across the main ;. 
But here the Autumn melancholy dwells. 

And sighs her tearful spells 
Amongst the sunless shadows of the plain. 
Alone, alone, 
Upon a mossy stone, 
She sits and reckons up the dead and gone 



ODE : AUTUMN. 267 

With the last leaves for a love-rosary, 
Whilst all the wither'd world looks drearily, 
Like a dim picture of the drowned past 
In the hush'd mind's mysterious ftxr away, 
Doubtful what ghostly thing will steal the last 
Into that distance, gray upon the gray. 

V. 

O go and sit with her, and be o'ershaded 
Under the languid downfall of her hair : 
She wears a coronal of flowers faded 
Upon her forehead, and a face of care ; — 
There is enough of wither'd everywhere 
To make her bovver, — and enough of gloom ; 
There is enough of sadness to invite. 
If only for the rose that died, — whose doom 
Is Beauty's, — she that with the living bloom 
Of conscious cheeks most beautifies the light ; — 
There is enough of sorrowing, and quite 
Enough of bitter fruits the earth doth bear, — 
Enough of chilly droppings for her bowl ; 
Enough of fear and shadowy despair. 
To frame her cloudy prison for the soul ! 



AUTUMN. 

I. 
The Autumn skies are flush'd with gold, 
And fair and bright the rivers run ; 
These are but streams of winter cold, 
And painted mists that quench the sun. 

II. 

In secret boughs no sweet birds sing, 
In secret boughs no bird can shroud ; 
These are but leaves that take to wing, 
And wintry winds that pipe so loud. 



'Tis not trees' shade, but cloudy glooms 
That on the cheerless valleys fall, 
The flowers are in their grassy tombs. 
And tears of dew are on them all. 



269 



AUTUMN. 

The Autumn is old, 
The sere leaves are flying ;—' 
He hath gather'd up gold, 
And now he is dying ; — 
Old age, begin sighing ! 

The vintage is ripe, 
The harvest is heaping ; — 
But some that have sow'd 
Have no riches for reaping ; — 
Poor wretch, fall a weeping ! 

The year 's in the wane. 
There is nothing adorning. 
The night has no eve. 
And the day has no morning ; — 
Cold winter gives warning. 

The rivers run chill, 

The red sun is sinking, 

And I am grown old, 

And life is fast shrinking ; — 

Here 's enow for sad thinking ! 



270 



SONG. 



FOR MUSIC. 



I. 

A LAKE and a fairy boat 

To sail in the moonlight clear, — 

And merrily we would float 

From the dragons that watch us here ! 

II. 

Thy gown should be snow-white silk, 
And strings of orient pearls, 
Like gossamers dipp'd in milk, 
Should twine with thy raven curls ! 

III. 
'Red rubies should deck thy hands, 
And diamonds should be thy dow'r — 
But Fairies have broke their wands, 
And wishing has lost its pow'r ! 



271 



SONG. 

I. 

The stars are with the voyager 

Wherever he may sail ; 
The moon is constant to her time ; 

The sun will never fail ; 
But follow, follow round the world, 

The green earth and the sea ; 
So love is with the lovers heart, 

Wherever he may be. 



Wherever he may be, the stars 

Must daily lose their hght ; 
The moon will veil her in the shade 

The sun will set at night. 
The sun may set, but constant love 

Will shine when he 's away ; 
So that dull night is never night, 

And day is brighter day. 



272 



HYMN TO THE SUN. 



Giver of glowing light ! 
Though but a god of other days, 

The kings and sages 

Of wiser ages 
Still live and gladden in thy genial rays. 

II. 

King of the tuneful lyre. 
Still poets' hymns to thee belong ; 

Though lips are cold 

Whereon of old 
Thy beams all turn'd to worshipping and song! 

III. 

Lord of the dreadful bow, 
None triumph now for Python's death ; 

But thou dost save 

From hungry grave 
The life that hangs upon a summer breath. 



HYMN TO THE SUN. ' 273 



IV. 



Father of rosy day, 
No more thy clouds of incense rise ; 
But waking flow'rs 
At morning hours, 
Give out their sweets to meet thee in the skies. 



God of the Delphic fane, 
No more thou listenest to hymns sublime ; 

But they will leave 

On winds at eve, 
A solemn echo to the end of time. 



VOL. I. 



18 



TO A COLD BEAUTY. 



Lady, wouldst tliou heiress be 
To Winter's cold and cruel part ? 

When he sets the rivers free, 

Thou dost still lock up thy heart ; — 

Thou that shouldst outlast the snow, 

But in the whiteness of thy brow ? 

II. 

Scorn and cold neglect are made 
For winter gloom and winter wind, 

But thou wilt wrong the summer air, 
Breathing it to words unkind, — 

Breath which only should belong 

To love, to sunlight, and to song ! 

III. 

When the little buds unclose, 

Red, and white, and pied, and blue. 

And that virgin flow'r, the rose. 
Opes her heart to hold the dew, 



TO A COLD BEAUTY. 275 

Wilt thou lock tliy bosom up 
With no jewel in its cup ? 

IV. 

Let not cold December sit 

Thus in Love's peculiar throne ; — 

Brooklets are not prison'd now, 
But crystal frosts are all agone, 

And that which hangs upon the spray, 

It is no snow, but flower of May ! 



RUTH. 

She stood breast high amid the corn, 
Clasp'd by the golden light of morn, 
Like the sweetheart of the sun, 
Who many a glowing kiss had won. 

On her cheek an autumn flush, 
Deeply ripen'd ; — such a blush 
In the midst of brown was born. 
Like red poppies grown with corn. 

Round her eyes her tresses fell. 
Which were blackest none could tell. 
But long lashes veil'd a light. 
That had else been all too bright. 

And her hat, with shady brim, 
M^de her tressy forehead dim ; — 
Thus she stood amid the stooks. 
Praising God with sweetest looks : — 

Sure, I said, heav'n did not mean. 
Where I reap thou shouldst but glean, 
Lay thy sheaf adown and come. 
Share my harvest and my home. 



277 



THE SEA OF DEATH. 



A FRAGMENT. 



Methought I saw 



Life swifl.ly treading over endless space ; 
And, at her foot-print, but a bygone pace. 
The ocean-past, which, with increasing wave, 
Swallow'd her steps like a pursuing grave. 

Sad were my thoughts that anchor'd silently 
On the dead waters of that passionless sea, 
Unstirr'd by any touch of living breath : 
Silence hung over it, and drowsy Death, 
Like a gorged sea-bird, slept with folded wings 
On crowded carcasses — sad passive things 
That wore the thin gray surface, like a veil 
Over the calmness of their features pale. 

And there were spring-faced cherubs that did sleep 
Like water-lilies on that motionless deep, 
How beautiful ! with bright unruffled hair 
On sleek unfretted brows, and eyes that were 
Buried in marble tombs, a pale eclipse ! 



278 THE SEA OF DEATH. 

And smile-bedimpled cheeks, and pleasant lips, 

Meekly apart, as if the soul intense 

Spake out in dreams of its own innocence : 

And so they lay in loveliness, and kept 

The birth-night of their peace, that Life e'en wept 

With very envy of their happy fronts ; 

For there were neighbour brows scarr'd by the 

brunts 
Of strife and sorrowing — w^here Care had set 
His crooked autograph, and marr'd the jet 
Of glossy locks, with hollow eyes forlorn, 
And lips that curl'd in bitterness and scorn — 
Wretched, — as they had breathed of this world's 

pain, 
And so bequeath'd it to the world again 
Through the beholder's heart in heavy sighs. 
So lay tliey garmented in torpid light. 
Under the pall of a transparent night, 
Like solemn apparitions lull'd sublime 
To everlasting rest, — and with them Time 
Slept, as he sleeps upon the silent face 
Of a dark dial in a sunless place. 



I REMEMBER, I REMEMBER. 

I REMEMBER, I remember, 
The house where I was born, 
The little window where the sun 
Came peeping in at morn ; 
He never came a wink too soon, 
Nor brought too long a day. 
But now, I often wish the night 
Had borne my breath away ! 

I remember, I remember. 
The roses, red and white. 
The vi'lets, and the lily-cups. 
Those flowers made of light ! 
The lilacs where the robin built, 
And where my brother set 
The laburnum on his birth-day, — 
The tree is living yet ! 

I remember, I remember 

Where I was used to swing. 

And thought the air must rush as fresh 

To swallows on the wing ; 



280 I REMEMBER, I REMEMBER. 

My spirit flew in feathers then, 
That is so heavy now, 
And summer pools could hardly cool 
The fever on my brow ! 

I remember, I remember 

The fir trees dark and high ; 

I used to think their slender tops 

Were close against the sky : 

It was a childish ignorance, 

But now 'tis little joy 

To know I 'm farther off from heav'n 

Than when I was a boy. 



THE WATER LADY. 

I. 
Alas, the moon should ever beam 
To show what man should never see !- 
I saw a maiden on a stream, 
And fair was she ! 



1 staid awhile, to see her throw 
Her tresses back, that all beset 
The fair horizon of her brow 
With clouds of jet. 

Til. 

I staid a little while to view 
Her cheek, that wore in place of red 
The bloom of water, tender blue. 
Daintily spread. 

IV. 

I staid to watch, a little space. 
Her parted lips if she would sing ; 
The waters closed above her face 
With many a ring. 



282 THE WATER LADY. 



V. 

And still I staid a little more, 
Alas ! she never comes again ! 
I throw my flowers from the shore, 
And watch in vain. 

VI. 

I know my life will fade away, 
I know that I must vainly pine, 
For I am made of mortal clay, 
But she 's divine ! 



THE EXILE. 

The swalloAv with summer 

Will wing o'er the seas, 
The wind that I sigh to 

Will visit thy trees, 
The ship that it hastens 

Thy i3orts will contain, 
But me — I must never 

See England again ! 

There 's many that weep there. 

But cne weeps alone, 
For the tears that are falling 

So far from her own ; 
So far from thy own, love. 

We know not our pain ; 
If death is between us. 

Or only the main. 

When the white cloud reclines 
On the verge of the sea, 

I fancy the white cliffs, 
And dream upon thee ; 



284 THE EXILE. . 

But the cloud spreads its wings 
To the blue lieav'n and flies. 

We never shall meet, love, 
Except in the skies ! 



TO AN ABSENTEE. 

O'er hill, and dale, and distant sea, 
Through all the miles that stretch between, 
My thought must fly to rest on thee, 
And would, though worlds should intervene. 

Nay, thou art now so dear, methinks 
The farther we are forced apart. 
Affection's firm elastic links 
But bind the closer round the heart. 

For now we sever each from each, 
I learn what I have lost in thee ; 
Alas, that nothing less could teach. 
How great indeed my love should be ! 

Farewell ! I did not know thy worth, 
But thou art gone, and now 'tis prized .* 
So angels walk'd unknown on earth, 
But when they flew were recognized ! 



286 



ODE TO THE MOON. 

I. 
Mother of light ! how fairly dost thou go 
Over those hoary crests, divinely led ! — 
Art thou that huntress of the silver bow 
Fabled of old ? Or rather dost thou tread 
Those cloudy summits thence to gaze below, 
Like the wild Chamois from her Alpine snow, 
"Where hunter never climb'd, — secure from dread ? 
How many antique fancies have I read 
Of that mild presence ! and how many wrought I 

Wondrous and bright. 

Upon the silver light, 
Chasing fair figures with the artist, Thought ! 

II. 
What art thou like ? — Sometimes I see thee ride 
A far-bound galley on its perilous way. 
Whilst breezy waves toss up their silvery spray ; — 

Sometimes behold thee glide, 
Cluster'd by all thy family of stars, 
Like a lone widow, through the welkin wide, 
Whose pallid cheek the midnight sorrow mars ; — 



ODE TO THE MOON. 287 

Sometimes I watch thee on from steep to steep, 
Timidly lighted by thy vestal torch, 
Till in some Latmian cave I see thee creep. 
To catch the young Endymion asleep, — 
Leaving thy splendour at the jagged porch! — 

III. 
Oh, thou art beautiful, howe'er it be ! 
Huntress, or Dian, or whatever named ; 
And he, the veriest Pagan, that first framed 
A silver idol, and ne'er worshipp'd thee !; — 
It is too late, or thou shouldst ha\'e my knee ; 
Too late now for the old Ephesian vows, 
And not divine the crescent on thy brows ! — 
Yet, call thee nothing but the mere mild Moon, 

Behind those chestnut boughs, 
Casting their dappled shadows at my feet ; 
I will be grateful for that simple boon, 
In many a thoughtful verse and anthem sw^eet. 
And bless thy dainty face whene'er we meet. 

IV. 

In nights far gone, — aye, far away and dead, — 
Before Care-fretted with a lidless eye, — 
I was thy wooer on my little bed. 
Letting the early hours of rest go by. 
To see thee flood the heaven with milky light. 
And feed thy snow-white swans, before I slept ; 
For thou wert then purveyor of my dreams, — 
Thou wert the fairies' armourer, that kept 



288 ODE TO THE MOON. 

Their burnish'd helms, and crowns, and corselets 
bright. 

Their spears, and glittering mails ; 
And ever thou didst spill in winding streams 

Sparkles and midnight gleams. 
For fishes to new gloss their argent scales ! — 



Why sighs ? — why creeping tears ? — why clasped 

hands ? — 
Is it to count the boy's expended dow'r ? 
That fairies since have broke their gifted wands ? 
That young Delight, like any o'erblown flow'r, 
Gave, one by one, its sweet leaves to the ground ? — 
Why then, fair Moon, for all thou mark'st no hour, 
Thou art a sadder dial to old Time 

Than ever I have found 
On sunny garden-plot, or moss-grown tow'r, 
Motto'd with stern and melancholy rhyme. 

VI. 

Why should I grieve for this ? — Oh I must yearn, 
Whilst Time, conspirator with Memory, 
Keeps his cold ashes in an ancient urn, 
Richly emboss'd with childhood's revelry. 
With leaves and cluster'd fruits, and flow'rs 

eterne, — 
(Eternal to the world, though not to me,) 
Aye there will those brave sports and blossoms be. 
The deathless wreath, and undecay'd festoon. 



ODE TO THE MOON. 289 

When I am hearsed within, — 
Less than the pallid primrose to the Moon, 
That now she watches through a vapour thin. 

VII. 

So let it be : — Before I lived to sigh, 
Thou wert in Avon, and a thousand rills, 
Beautiful Orb ! and so, whene'er I lie 
Trodden, thou wilt be gazing from thy hills. 
Blest be thy loving light, where'er it spills. 
And blessed thy fair face, Mother mild ! 
Still shine, the soul of rivers as they run, 
Still lend thy lonely lamp to lovers fond, 
And blend their plighted shadows into one : — 
Still smile at even on the bedded child, 
And close his eyelids with thy silver wand ! 
VOL. I. 19 



THE FORSAKEN. 

The dead are in their silent graves, 
And the dew is cold above, 
And the living weep and sigh, 
Over dust that once was love. 

Once I only wept the dead, 
But now the living cause my pain : 
How couldst thou steal me from my tears, 
To leave me to my tears again ? 

My Mother rests beneath the sod, — 
Her rest is calm and very deep : 
I wish'd that she could see our loves, — 
But now I gladden in her sleep. 

Last night unbound my raven locks, 
The morning saw them turn'd to gray, 
Once they were black and well beloved. 
But thou art changed, — and sc" are they ! 

The useless lock I gave thee once. 

To gaze upon and think of me, 

Was ta'en with smiles, — but this was torn 

In sorrow that I send to thee 



291 



ODE TO MELANCHOLY. 

Come, let us set our careful breasts, 
Like Philomel, against the thorn, 
To aggravate the inward grief, 
That makes her accents so forlorn ; 
The world has many cruel points. 
Whereby our bosoms have been torn. 
And there are dainty themes of grief, 
In sadness to outlast the morn, — 
True honour's dearth, affection's death, 
Neglectful pride, and cankering scorn, 
With all the piteous tales that tears 
Have water'd since the world was born. 

The world ! — it is a wilderness, 
Where tears are hung on every tree ; 
For thus my gloomy phantasy 
Makes all things weep with me ! 
Come let us sit and watch the sky. 
And fancy clouds, where no clouds be ; 
Grief is enough to blot the eye. 
And make heav'n black with misery. 
Why should birds sing such merry notes, 



292 ODE TO MELANCHOLY. 

Unless they were more blest than we ? 
No sorrow ever chokes their throats, 
Except sweet nightingale ; for she 
Was born to pain our hearts the more 
With her sad melody. 
Why shines the sun, except that he 
Makes gloomy nooks for Grief to hide. 
And pensive shades for Melancholy, 
When all the earth is bright beside ? 
Let clay wear smiles, and green grass wave, 
Mirth shall not win us back again. 
Whilst man is made of his own grave, 
And fairest clouds but gilded rain ! 

I saw my mother in her shroud, 

Her cheek was cold and very pale ; 

And ever since I 've look'd on all 

As creatures doom'd to fail ! 

Why do buds ope, except to die ? 

Aye, let us watch the roses wither, 

And think of our loves' cheeks ; 

And oh, how quickly time doth fly 

To bring death's winter hither ! 

Minutes, hours, days, and weeks, 

Months, years, and ages, shrink to nought ; 

An age past is but a thought ! 

Aye, let us think of Him a while. 
That, with a coffin for a boat. 
Rows daily o'er the Stygian moat, 



ODE TO MELANCHOLY. 293 

And for our table choose a tomb : 

There 's dark enough in any skull 

To charge with black a raven plume ; 

And for the saddest funeral thoughts 

A winding sheet hath ample room, 

Where Death, with his keen-pointed style, 

Hath writ the common doom. 

How wide the yew-tree spreads its gloom, 

And o'er the dead lets fall its dew. 

As if in tears it wept for them. 

The many human families 

That sleep around its stem ! 

How cold the dead have made these stones, 

With natural drops kept ever wet ! 

Lo ! here the best, the worst, the Avorld 

Doth now remember or forget, 

Are in one coHimon ruin hurl'd. 

And love and hate are calmly met ; 

The loveliest eyes that ever shone. 

The fairest hands, and locks of jet. 

Is 't not enough to vex our souls. 

And fill our eyes, that we have set 

Our love uj)on a rose's leaf, 

Our hearts upon a violet ? 

Blue eyes, red cheeks, are frailer yet ; 

And, sometimes, at their swift decay 

Beforehand we must fret : 

The roses bud and bloom again ; 

But love may haunt the grave of love, 

And watch the mould in vain. 



294 ODE TO MELANCHOLY. 

O clasp me, sweet, whilst thou art mine, 

And do not take mj tears amiss ; 

For tears must flow to wash away 

A thought that shows so stern as this : 

Forgive, if somewhile I forget, 

In woe to come, the present bliss. 

As frighted Proserpine let fall 

Her flowers at the sight of Dis, 

Ev'n so the dark and bright will kiss. 

The sunniest things throw sternest shade, 

And there is ev'n a happiness 

That makes the heart afraid ! 

Now let us v/ith a spell invoke 

The full-orb'd moon to grieve our eyes ; 

Not bright, not bright, but, with a cloud 

Lapp'd all about her, let her rise 

All pale and dim, as if from rest 

The ghost of the late buried sun 

Had crept into the skies. 

The Moon ! she is the source of sighs, 

The very face to make us sad ; 

If but to think in other times 

The same calm quiet look she had. 

As if the world held nothing base. 

Of vile and mean, of fierce and bad ; 

The same fair light that shone in streams, 

The fairy lamp that charm'd the lad ; 

For so it is, with spent delights 

She taunts men's brains, and makes them mad. 



ODE TO MELANCHOLY. 295 

All things are touched with Melancholy, 
Born of the secret soul's mistrust, 
To feel her fair ethereal wings 
Weighed down with vile degraded dust ; 
Even the bright extremes of joy 
Bring on conclusions of disgust, 
Like the sw^eet blossoms of the May, 
Whose fragrance ends in must. 
O give her, then, her tribute just. 
Her sighs and tears, and musings holy ! 
There is no music in the life 
That sounds with idiot laughter solely ; 
There's not a string attuned to mirth. 
But has its chord in Melancholy. 



ON A NATIVE SmGER 

AFTER HEARING MISS ADELAIDE KEMBLE. 

As sweet as the bird that by calm Bendemeer, 
Pours such rich modulations of tone — 

As potent, as tender, as brilliant, as clear — 
Still her voice has a charm of its own. 

For lo ! like the skylark, when after its song 
It drops down to its nest from above, 

She reminds us her home and her music belong 
To the very same soil that we love. 



GUIDO AND MARINA. 

A DRAMATIC SKETCH. 

[Guido, having given himself up to the pernicious study of 
magic and astrology, casts his nativity, and resolves that at a 
certain hour bf a certain day he is to die. Marina, to wean 
him from this fatal delusion, which hath gradually wasted 
him away, even to the verge of death, advances the hour- 
hand of the clock. He is supposed to be seated beside her 
in the garden of his palace at Venice.] 

Guido. Clasp me again ! My soul is very sad ; 
And hold thy lips in readiness near mine, 
Lest I die suddenly. Clasp me again ! 
Tis such a gloomy day ! 

Mar. Nay, sweet, it shines. 

Guido. Nay, then, these mortal clouds are in 
mine eyes. 
Clasp me again ! — ay, with thy fondest force. 
Give me one last embrace. 

Mar. Love, I do clasp thee ! 

Guido. Then closer — closer — for I feel thee 
not ; 
Unless thou art this pain around my heart. 
Thy lips at such a time should never leave me. 



GUIDO AND MARINA. 297 

Mar. What pain — what time, love ? Art 
thou ill ? Alas ! 
I see it in thy cheek. Come, let me nurse thee. 
Here rest upon my heart. 

Guido. Stay, stay, Marina. 

Look ! — when I raise my hand against the sun, 
Is it red with blood ? 

Mar. Alas ! my love, w^hat 

wilt thou ? 
Thy hand is red — and so is mine — all hands 
Show thus against the sun. 

Guido. All living men's, 

Marina, but not mine. Hast never heard 
How death first seizes on the feet and hands, 
And thence goes freezing to the very heart ? 

Mar. Yea, love, I know it ; but what then ? -^ 
this hand 
I hold is glowing. 

Guido. But my eyes ! — my eyes ! 

Look there, Marina — there is death's own sign. 
I have seen a corpse. 
E'en when its clay was cold, would still have 

seemed 
Alive, but for the eyes — such deadly eyes ! 
So dull and dim ! Marina, look in mine ! 

Mar. Ay, they are dull. No, no — not dull, 
but bright : 
I see myself within them. Now, dear love. 
Discard these horrid fears that make me weep. 

Guido. Marina, Marina — where thy image lies 



298 GUIDO AND MARINA. 

There must be brightness — or perchance they 

glance 
And glimmer like the lamp before it dies. 
Oh, do not vex my soul with hopes impossible ! 
My hours are ending. [ Clock strikes. 

Mar. Nay, they shall not ! Hark ! 

The hour — four — five — hark ! six ! — the very 

time ! 
And, lo ! thou art alive ! My love — dear love — 
Now cast this cruel phantasm from thy brain — 
This wilful, wild delusion — cast it off! 
The hour is come — and gone / What ! not a word ! 
What, not a smile, even, that thou livest for me ! 
Come, laugh and clap thy hands as I do — come. 
Or kneel with me, and thank th' eternal God 
For this blest passover ! Still sad ! still mute ! — 
Oh, why art thou not glad, as I am glad. 
That death forbears thee ? Nay, hath all my love 
Been spent in vain, that thou art sick of life ? 

Guido. Marina, I'm no more attached to death 
Than Fate hath doomed me. I am his elect. 
That even now forestalls my little light. 
And steals with cold infringement on my breath : 
Already he bedims my spiritual lamp. 
Not yet his due — not yet — quite yet, though 

Time, 
Perchance, to warn me, speaks before his wont : 
Some minutes' space my blood has still to flow — 
Some scanty breath is left me still to spend 
In very bitter sighs. 



GUIDO AND MARINA. 299 

But there 's a point, true measured by my pulse, 
Beyond or short of which it may not live 
By one poor throb. Marina, it is near. 

Mar. Oh, God of heaven ! 

Guido. Ay, it is very near. 

Therefore, cling now to me, and say farewell 
Whilst I can answer it. Marina, speak ! 
Why tear thine helpless hair ! it will not save 
Thy heart from breaking, nor pluck out the thought 
That stings thy brain. Oh, surely thou hast 

known 
This truth too long to look so like Despair ! 

Mar. 0, no, no, no — a hope — a little hope — 
I had erewhile — but I have heard its knell. 
Oh, would my life were measured out with thine — 
All my years numbered — all my days, my hours, 
My utmost minutes, all summed up with thine ! 

Guido. Marina — 
^ 3far. Let me weep — no, let me kneel 

To God — but rather thee, — to spare this end 
That is so wilful. Oh, for pity's sake ! 
Pluck back thy precious spirit from these clouds 
That smother it with death. Oh ! turn from death, 
And do not woo it with such dark resolve, 
To make me widowed. — 

Guido. I have lived my term. 

Mar. No — not thy term — no, not the natural 
term 
Of one so young. Oh ! thou hast spent thy years 
In sinful waste upon unholy — 



300 GUIDO AND MARINA. 

Guido. Hush ! 

Marina. 

Mar. Nay, I must. Oh ! cursed lore. 
That hath suppHed this spell against thy life. 
Unholy learning — devilish and dark — 
Study ! — 0, God, 0, God ! — how can thy stars 
Be bright with such black knowledge ! Oh, that 

men 
Should ask more light of them, than guides their 

steps 
At evening to love ! 

Guido. Hush, hush, oh, hush ! 

Thy words have pained me in the midst of pain. 
True, if I had not read, — I should not die, 
For, if. I had not read, I had not been. 
All of our acts of life are pre-ordained. 
And each pre-acted, in our several spheres, 
By ghostly duplicates. They sway our deeds 
By their performance. What if mine hath been 
To be a prophet and foreknow my doom ? 
If I had closed my eyes, the thunder then 
Had roared it in my ears ; my own mute brain 
Had told it with a tongue. What must be, must. 
Therefore I knew when my full time would fall — 
And now — to save thy widowhood of tears — 
To spare the very breaking of thy heart, 
I may not gain even a brief hour's reprieve ! 
What see'st thou yonder ? 

Mar. Where ? — a tree — the sun 

Sinking behind a tree. 



GUIDO AND MARINA. 301 

Guido. It is no tree, 

Marina, but a shape — the awful shape 
That comes to claim me. Seest thou not his shade 
Darken before his stej^s ? Ah, me ! how cold 
It comes against my feet ! — Cold, icy cold ! 
And blacker than a pall. 

Mar, My love ! 

Guido. Oh, heaven 

And earth, where are ye ? Marina — 

\_Guido dies. 

Mar. I am here ! 

What wilt thou ? dost thou speak ! — Methought 

I heard thee 
"^ust whispering — He is dead ! — Oh, God ! he 's 
dead! 



302 ANSWER TO A LADY. 



ANSWER 

TO A LADY WHO REQUESTED THE AUTHOR TO WRITE SOME 
VERSES IN HER ALBUM, DECLARATORY OP WHAT HE 
LIKED AND WHAT HE DISLIKED. 

You bid me mention what I like, 

And, gaily smiling, little guess 
How deeply may that question strike 

The chords of solemn thankfulness. 

I like my friends, my children, wife — 
The home they make so blessed a spot ; 

I like my fortune — calling — life — 
In every thing I like my lot ; 

And feeling thus, my heart 's imbued 

With never-ceasing gratitude. 

Wliat I dislike, you next demand. 

A puzzling query — for in me 
Nought that proceeds from Nature's hand 

Awakens an antipathy. 
But what I like the least are those 

Who nourish an unthankful mind, 
Quick to discern imagined woes, 

To all their real blessings blind. 
For that is double want of love, 
To man below, and God above. 



SONNETS. 303 



TO THE OCEAN. 

Shall I rebuke thee, Ocean, my old love, 
That once, in rage with the wild winds at strife 
Thou darest menace my unit of a life, 
Sending my clay below, my soul above, 
Whilst roar'd thy waves, like lions when they rove 
By night and bound upon their prey by stealth ? 
Yet didst thou ne'er restore my fainting health ? — 
Didst thou ne'er murmur gently like the dove ? 
Nay, didst thou not against my own dear shore 
Full break, last link between my land and me ? — 
My absent friends talk in thy very roar, 
In thy waves' beat their kindly pulse I see, 
And, if I must not see my England more, 
Next to her soil, my grave be found in thee ! 

CoBLEKTZ, May, 1835. 



304 



SONNETS. 



II. 



LEAK. 



A POOB old king, with sorrow for my crown, 
Throned upon straw, and mantled with the wind- 
For pity, my own tears have made me blind 
That I might never see my children's frown ; 
And may be madness, like a friend, has thrown 
A folded fillet over my dark mind. 
So that unkindly speech may sound for kind, — 
Albeit I know not. — I am childish grown — 
And have not gold to purchase wit withal — 
I that have once maintain'd most royal state — 
A very bankrupt now that may not call 
My child, my child — all-beggar'd save in tears, 
Wherewith I daily weep an old man's fate. 
Foolish — and blind — and overcome with years ! 



SONNETS. 305 



III. 

SONNET TO A SONNET. 

Rare composition of a poet-knight, 
Most chivalrous amongst chivalric men, 
Distinguish'd for a polish'd lance and pen 
In tuneful contest and in tourney-fight ; 
Lustrous in scholarship, in honour bright, 
Accomplish'd in all graces current then. 
Humane as any in historic ken, 
Brave, handsome, noble, affable, polite ; 
Most courteous to that race become of late 
So fiercely scornful of all kind advance, 
Rude, bitter, coarse, implacable in hate 
To Albion, plotting ever her mischance, — 
Alas, fair verse ! how false and out of date 
Thy phrase " sweet enemy " applied to France ! 
VOL. I. 20 



306 



SONNETS. 



IT. 



FALSE POETS AND TRUE. 

Look how the lark soars upward and is gone, 

Turning a spirit as he nears the sky ! 

His voice is heard, but bodj there is none 

To fix the vague excursions of the eye. 

So, poets' songs are with us, tho' they die 

Obscured, and hid by death's oblivious shroud, 

And earth inherits the rich melody. 

Like raining music from the morning cloud. 

Yet, few there be who pipe so sweet and loud, 

Their voices reach us through the lapse of space ; 

The noisy day is deafen'd by a crowd 

Of undistinguish'd birds, a twittering race ; 

But only lark and nightingale forlorn 

Fill up the silences of night and morn. 



SONNETS. 307 



TO 



My heart is sick with longing, tho' I feed 

On hope ; Time goes with such a heavy pace 

That neither brings nor takes from thy embrace, 

As if he slept — forgetting his old speed : 

For, as in sunshine only we can read 

The march of minutes on the dial's face, 

So in the shadows of this lonely place 

There is no love, and Time is dead indeed. 

But when, dear lady, I am near thy heart, 

Thy smile is time, and then so swift it flies, 

It seems we only meet to tear apart 

With aching hands and lingering of eyes. 

Alas, alas ! that we must learn hours' flight 

By the same light of love that makes them bright ! 



308 SONNETS. 



VI. 

FOR THE 14TH OF FEBRUARY. 

No popular respect will I omit 
To do thee honour on this happy day, 
When every loyal lover tasks his wit 
His simple truth in studious rhymes to pay, 
And to his mistress dear his hopes convey. 
Rather thou knowest I would still outrun 
All calendars with Love's, — whose date alway 
Thy bright eyes govern better than the Sun, — 
For with thy favour was my life begun ; 
And still I reckon on from smiles to smiles. 
And not by summers, for I thrive on none 
But those thy cheerful countenance compiles : 
Oh ! if it be to choose and call thee mine, 
Love, thou art every day my Valentine. 



SONNETS. 



309 



VII. 

TO A SLEEPING CHILD. 
I. 

Oh, 'tis a touching thing to make one weep, — 
A tender infant with its curtain'd eye, 
Breathing as it would neither live nor die 
With that unchanging countenance of sleep ! 
As if its silent dream, serene and deep. 
Had lined its slumber with a still blue sky. 
So that the passive cheeks unconscious lie 
With no more life than roses — just to keep 
The "blushes warm, and the mild, odorous breath. 
blossom boy ! so calm is thy repose. 
So sweet a compromise of life and death, 
'Tis pity those fair buds should e'er unclose 
For memory to stain their inward leaf, 
Tinging thy dreams with unacquainted grief. 



310 SONNETS. 



VIII. 



TO A SLEEPING CHILD. 



II. 

Thine eyelids slept so beauteously, I deem'd 
No eyes could wake so beautiful as they : 
Thy rosy cheeks in such still slumbers lay, 
i loved their peacefulness, nor ever dream'd 
Of dimples ; — for those parted lips so seem'd, 
I never thought a smile could sweetlier play, 
Nor that so graceful life could chase away 
Thy graceful death, — till those blue eyes upbeam'd. 
Now slumber lies in dimpled eddies drown'd, 
And roses bloom more rosily for joy, 
And odorous, silence ripens into sound, 
And fingers move to sound, — All-beauteous boy ! 
How thou dost waken into smiles, and prove, 
If not more lovely, thou art more like Love ! 



SONNETS. 311 



IX. 



The "World is with me, and its many cares, 
Its woes — its wants — the anxious hopes and fearss 
That wait on all terrestrial affairs — 
The shades of former and of future years — 
Foreboding fancies, and prophetic tears, 
Quelling a spirit that was once elate. 
Heavens ! what a wilderness the world appears, 
Where Youth, and Mirth, and Health are out of 

date ; 
But no — a laugh of innocence and joy 
Resounds, like music of the fairy race. 
And, gladly turning from the world's annoy, 
I gaze upon a little radiant face. 
And bless, internally, the merry boy 
Who " makes a son-shine in a shady place." 



312 SONNETS. 



WRITTEN IN A VOLUME OF SHAKSPEAKE. 

How bravely Autumn paints upon the sky 
The gorgeous fame of Summer which is fled ! 
Hues of all flow'rs that in their ashes lie, 
Trophied in that fair light whereon they fed, 
Tulip, and hyacinth, and sweet rose red, — 
Like exhalations from the leafy mould, 
Look here how honour glorifies the dead, 
And warms their scutcheons with a glance of 

gold!— 
Such is the memory of poets old, 
Who on Parnassus' hill have bloom 'd elate; 
Now they are laid under their marbles cold, 
And turn'd to clay, whereof they were create ; 
But God Apollo hath them all enroU'd, 
And blazon'd on the very clouds of fate ! 



SONNETS. 313 



II. 



TO FANCY. 



Most delicate Ariel ! submissive thing, 
Won by the mind's high magic to its best, — 
Invisible embassy, or secret guest, — 
Weighing the light air on a lighter wing ; — 
Whether into the midnight moon, to bring 
Illuminate visions to the eye of rest, — 
Or rich romances from the florid West, — 
Or to the sea, for mystic whispering, — 
Still by thy charm'd allegiance to the will, 
The fruitful wishes prosper in the brain. 
As by the fingering of fairy skill, — 
Moonlight, and waters, and soft music's strain, 
Odours, and blooms, and my Miranda's smile, 
Making this dull world an enchanted isle. 



314- 



SONNETS. 



Til. 



TO AN ENTHUSIAST. 



Young ardent soul, graced with fair Nature's 

truth, 
Spring warmth of heart, and fervency of mind, 
And still a large late love of all thy kind. 
Spite of the world's cold practice and Time's 

tooth, 
For all these gifts, I know not, in fair sooth. 
Whether to give thee joy, or bid thee blind 
Thine eyes with tears, — that thou -hast not resign'd 
The passionate fire and freshness of thy youth : 
For as the current of thy life shall flow. 
Gilded by shine of sun or shadow-stain'd, 
Through flow'ry valley or unwholesome fen, 
Thrice blessed in thy joy, or in thy woe 
Thrice cursed of thy race, — thou art ordain'd 
To share beyond the lot of common men. 



SONNETS. 315 



IV. 



It is not death, that sometime in a sigh 

This eloquent breath shall take its speechless 

flight ; 
That sometime these bright stars, that now reply 
In sunlight to the sun, shall set in night ; 
That this warm conscious flesh shall perish quite, 
And all life's ruddy springs forget to flow ; 
That thoughts shall cease, and the immortal 

spright 
Be lapp'd in alien clay and laid below ; 
It is not death to know this, — but to know 
That pious thoughts, which visit at new graves 
In tender pilgrimage, will cease to go 
So duly and so oft, — and when grass waves 
Over the past-away, there may be then 
No resurrection in the minds of men. 



316 SONNETS. 



By ev'ry sweet tradition of true hearts, 
Graven by Time, in love with his own lore ; 
By all old martyrdoms and antique smarts, 
"Wherein Love died to be alive the more ; 
Yea, by the sad impression on the shore, 
Left by the drown'd Leander, to endear 
That coast for ever, where the billow's roar 
Moaneth for pity in the Poet's ear ; 
By Hero's faith, and the foreboding tear 
That quench'd her brand's last twinkle in its fall 
By Sappho's leap, and the low rustling fear 
That sigh'd around her flight ; L swear by all. 
The world shall find such pattern in my act, 
As if Love's great examples still were lack'd. 



SONNETS. 317 



VI. 

ON RECEIVING A GIFT. 

Look how the golden ocean shines above 
Its pebbly stones, and magnifies their girth ; 
So does the bright and blessed light of love 
Its own things glorify, and raise their worth. 
As weeds seem flowers beneath the flattering 

brine. 
And stones like gems, and gems as gems indeed, 
Ev'n so our tokens shine ; nay, they outshine 
Pebbles and pearls, and gems and coral weed ; 
For where be ocean waves but half so clear, 
So calmly constant, and so kindly warm. 
As Love's most mild and glowing atmosphere, 
That hath no dregs to be upturn'd by storm ? 
Thus, sweet, thy gracious gifts are gifts of price, 
And more than gold to doting Avarice. 



318 



SONNETS. 



VII. 



SILENCE. 



There is a silence where hath been no sound, 
There is a silence where no sound may be, 
In the cold grave — under the deep deep sea. 
Or in wide desert where no life is found, 
Which hath been mute, and still must sleep pro- 
found ; 
No voice is hush'd — no life treads silently. 
But clouds and cloudy shadows wander free, 
That never spoke, over the idle ground : 
But in green ruins, in the desolate walls 
Of antique palaces, M^here Man hath been. 
Though the dun fox, or wild hygena, calls. 
And owls, that flit continually between. 
Shriek to the echo, and the low winds moan. 
There the true Silence is, self-conscious and alone. 



SONNETS. ol9 



VIII. 



The curse of Adam, the old curse of all 

Though I inherit in this feverish life 

Of worldly toil, vain wishes, and hard strife, 

And fruitless thought, in Care's eternal thrall. 

Yet more sweet honey than of bitter gall 

I taste, through thee, my Eva, my sweet wife. 

Then wl;iat was Man's lost Paradise ! — how rife 

Of bliss, since love is with him in his fall ! 

Such as our own pure passion still might frame. 

Of this fair earth, and its delightful bow'rs. 

If no fell sorrow, like the serpent, came 

To trail its venom o'er the sweetest flow'rs : — 

But oh ! as many and such tears are ours, 

As only should be shed for guilt and shame ! 



320 SONNETS. 



IX. 



Love, dearest Lady, sucli as I would speak, 
Lives not within the humour of the eye ; — 
Not being but an outward phantasy, 
That skims the surface of a tinted cheek — 
Else it would wane with beauty, and grow weak, 
As if the rose made summer, — and so lie 
Amongst the perishable things that die, 
Unlike the love which I would give and seek 
Whose health is of no hue — to feel decay 
With cheeks' decay, that have a rosy prime. 
Love is its own great loveliness alway. 
And takes new lustre from the touch of time ; 
Its bough owns no December and no May, 
But bears its blossom into Winter's clime. 



END OF VOLUME T. 



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